The true story of the massacre at deir yassin
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The Thesis The following are the main points of the Deir Yassin affair, that have been articulated in public, and which we are about to disprove, one by one: The village of Deir Yassin, located on the western edge of Jerusalem, near the Givat Shaul neighborhood, was a quiet village. Its inhabitants had a non attack pact with the people of the Givat Shaul neighborhood. Its inhabitants did not act against the Jews in the War of Independence and did not endanger them in any way. Therefore, the Jews had no rationale to attack the village and eject its inhabitants. During the battle the men of Etzel and Lehi murdered women, children and elderly people, who did not endanger them in any way. After the battle the occupiers led the inhabitants to a quarry between the village and Jerusalem and there they massacred many of them. In total the men of Etzel and Lehi massacred 254 inhabitants of Deir Yassin. c These "facts" are the inalienable property of the heritage of the War of Independence for most Jews, the heritage of "The Disaster" (Naqba) of the Palestinians and the Arab world, and of the narrative of that war throughout the world. In 2002 the IDF administration ordered the halting of the lectures of one of the soldiers in the battle of Deir Yassin, a former Lehi man – who was accustomed to lecturing, for many years, on this topic before IDF soldiers – because he denied the matter of the massacre. The IDF took this harsh measure following the complaint of Knesset Member Naomi Hazan, a Professor of political science at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Such parallel thinking about a basic narrative, between the Palestinians and the IDF, does not exist in any other sphere. We will prove that most of the published claims about the Deir Yassin affair are false. Our main position is that the leader of the early Jewish settlement, the chairman of the leadership of the Jewish Agency and the one who held its defense portfolio, David Ben Gurion, knew about the planned attack of the Etzel and Lehi on Deir Yassin. He approved it, and received a detailed report on all the events, including reports from the commander of the Jerusalem district, his trusted follower, David Shaltiel, and from Shimon Monita, a secret agent of the Haganah in Lehi, who took part in the battle,. Ben Gurion also knew that there was no massacre in Deir Yassin and in spite of this remained silent publicly, both in 1948 and also afterward, until his death. But, nevertheless, in a meeting with the agent Shimon Monita at the beginning of the 1950s, 5 Ben Gurion confirmed that he knew the truth about the Deir Yassin affair, In the next chapters we will establish such proofs. If our claims are not refuted, this undermines everything that has been written about the Deir Yassin affair in the 59 years since it happened. Furthermore, this will shed new light on David Ben Gurion, on his close associates, on research into the War of Independence and other wars, and generally on political and security culture, in terms of academic research into the early Jewish settlement and the state of Israel. Since, if in this affair David Ben Gurion and his close associates succeeded in deceiving the whole world, so also in other affairs, less damaging to Israel's image, such is the case. Establishment Of The Thesis There were attacks that came out of Deir Yassin, and the village served as a base for partially fixed units that acted against Hebrew Jerusalem. Therefore, there was no difference between Deir Yassin and other villages that were attacked and destroyed at approximately the same time, and whose inhabitants were deported by the Haganah organization and the IDF in the Jerusalem district, such as: Castel, Colonia, Saris and Beit Machsir, and other villages around the country. Elimination of the village of Deir Yassin was included in an order for operation "Nachshon" ( April 1, 1948) of the operational arm of the Haganah. This order stated that all the villages overlooking the road to Jerusalem needed to be eliminated. The attack on Deir Yassin was coordinated with the Haganah command in Jerusalem in the framework of operation "Nachshon" that aimed to secure Hebrew transportation into Jerusalem. In the order for the "Nachshon" operation it stated that Haganah forces will destroy Arab villages near the Jerusalem highway, that threaten Hebrew transportation to the city. Inhabitants of the villages will be deported by force. At the time of the operation events occurred in the other Arab villages that were similar to events that transpired in Deir Yassin.a A unit of Palmach took part in the occupation of Deir Yassin and it completed the occupation, b and not only aided in rescuing wounded, as was published after many years during which this fact was also hidden. In Deir Yassin no more than 110 Arabs were killed, and possibly even far fewer. The massacre, as it were, after the battle, in the quarry or another place, never happened, and most of the killed were wounded during the fighting by soldiers of Etzel, Lehi, Haganah "Etzioni" division and Palmach. During the fighting it emerged that as opposed to the information the soldiers had, the doors of the houses were not of wood but of iron, and in order to break them down they affixed explosives to them and blew them up. From these explosions some of the inhabitants of the houses were wounded and killed. Some of the ones killed were wounded by the fire of a machine gun that was fired from afar by men of the Haganah, at a time when the Arabs tried to flee from the village under attack toward the village of Ein Kerem, south of Jerusalem. This machine gun fire mainly wounded non-combatants and also wounded from behind Etzel soldiers that attacked the village. On the day of the battle the Etzel commander published an exaggeration about the number of killed – 240 – in order to frighten the Arabs and glorify the attackers. This exaggerated number served as a rationale for some of the media that publicized that there was a massacre and that the Etzel commander admits this, since indeed if there was no massacre how were so many people killed? The real "hero" of the "massacre of Deir Yassin" libel is a retired IDF Colonel, a former Knesset member, military educator, Dr. Meir Payil. He is the main source for the story of the massacre. At the outbreak of the War of Independence Payil commanded a special "Season" of the Haganah, that fought a psychological battle against Etzel and Lehi. His unit was part of a national unit, political in character, whose commander then was a member of Kibbutz Beit Alpha of the Shomer Hatzair, David Cohen. Among other functions it conducted psychological warfare and spread disinformation about Etzel and Lehi. Payil was transferred from his command a short time before Etzel and Lehi attacked Deir Yassin and was appointed commander of the military police in Jerusalem. Since he requested to continue to command of the "Season" unit and to avoid commanding the military police, it is reasonable to assume that he strengthened his request by fabricating the act of "a dreadful and terrible massacre" by the "dissidents" After the war he became a public relations man for the Palmach and an educator for left-wing values, and pretended to be a military historian. His Palmach comrades, that took control of the IDF and afterward the country, aided him in achieving his personal objectives that fit their objectives. Therefore, the cultivation of the narrative of the massacre in Deir Yassin fit all his personal objectives, and also served those that came out of the Palmach, the Mapai and Mapam parties, and the Israeli left-wing generally. Even though some of these facts were known both in the War of Independence and also after, they were not revealed, not in 1948 and not later. After I exposed some of these facts for the first time at the beginning of the 1990s and returned to relate to them a few times since then, mostly in a scientific conference in Bar Ilan University, most researchers and people of the Israeli media have ignored them and have adhered to the manipulative version. It is possible to account for a number of reasons that the Deir Yassin affair became a foundation stone in Israel's culture. Ben Gurion and his successors and also Mapam and its followers sought to harm the "Herut" party politically, then headed by Menachem Begin, and later sought to harm "Gahal" and Likud. In the first years after the War of Independence Ben Gurion sought to deter the Israeli Arabs from striving to subvert the state of Israel, through the Deir Yassin story, that was even liable to occur, as it were, another time. The heads of left-wing Mapam, on one hand, and Jerusalem commander David Shaltiel, Ben Gurion's follower, on the other sought to publicize their slander about Etzel and Lehi men in Israel in general and Jerusalem in particular. This was part of a struggle over public opinion in Jerusalem which cost the prestige of Etzel and Lehi, following their success in deporting the Arabs from other neighborhoods. The prestige of the Haganah was then at a low point, following its continuous failures in the city and its environs, in the first four months of the war (the burning of the commercial center, the fall of the 35, massacre of the men of the "Hartuv Convoy" and "Aterot Convoy", and the defeat in the battle of the "Nevi Daniel Convoy") The heads of the Haganah, and in particular the men of Palmach, all adherents of Mapam, sought to prevent the joining of Etzel and Lehi to the IDF, as a military framework, and force them to break up, so that their members would join the IDF only as units without rank and function. They hoped that applying an image of murderers of women and children to the men of Etzel and Lehi would aid in breaking up these organization before the Declaration of Independence. In later years, the weavers of the libel took pains to prevent payment of the political and personal price (social, academic, economic) that these initiators of the manipulation and its undertaking were liable to pay, if their manipulative deeds were exposed. The old school Israeli elites had an interest in covering over this affair, whose exposure would possibly disturb the moral, educational and ideological basis many of them held. Therefore, the media did not deal with it and the universities did not research it. History One cannot understand the Deir Yassin Affair without knowing fundamental data about its military and political background, about its embryonic stages and about its chaotic progression: At the beginning of the UN General Assembly on November 29, 1947 (considered only a recommendation) it was determined that Jerusalem not be included either in the territory of the Jewish state or in the territory of the Arab state, that were expected to be established, but will be international territory under UN control.6 Because of the holiness of Jerusalem to Jews and Arabs, and the desire of both sides to control it, it was not possible to fulfill this recommendation without the use of strong military force. Ben Gurion did declare that he accepted the Assembly resolution in letter and spirit, but declaration on one hand and intention to undertake it and ability to undertake it, on the other. In addition to this, the UN General Assembly does not have authority to force a resolution, but only the Security Council. This body did not have its own army, and it was dependent on the good will of the organization's members. The leaders of Etzel and Lehi, who rejected the partition plan completely, more aggressively rejected its implementation regarding Jerusalem and they adhered to insurgency, not only before the Declaration of Independence, but also after it. They saw in greater Jerusalem an inseparable part of the Jewish state that was about to be established. Their role, as they saw it, was to initiate acts of aggression and occupation in the Arab neighborhoods, in order to establish facts. 7 On the other hand, Ben Gurion's relation to Jerusalem was not consistent. Mapam's pragmatism, did not adhere to a principle, not even to the principle of Hebrew Jerusalem. After some months of war, in light of the adherence of the Jews to Jerusalem, Ben Gurion changed his position and raised Jerusalem to the head of his order of priorities. This change influenced the approval he gave to David Shaltiel to attack Deir Yassin. The positions of Etzel and Lehi in Jerusalem were relatively strong, and their popularity was pronounced due to the structure of the population. From the outbreak of the war the two organizations undertook aggressive actions in the city for the declared purpose of ejecting the Arabs, at least from the west of the city, and to expand Jewish control also eastward. The approach of Ben Gurion and the Haganah commanders to this activity was two pronged: on one hand they sought to control all armed forces, but on the other hand they enjoyed the operational results of the Etzel and Lehi. They did not return the occupied neighborhoods to Arab control and they prevented Arabs that fled from their homes from returning to them. This two-pronged approach reached a climax four months and nine days after the outbreak of the war, in the Deir Yassin Affair. Before November 29, David Ben Gurion and his advisors did not understanding the intricate situation in Jerusalem, and they assessed that the Arabs would not attack the Jews, at least not until the conclusion of the planned process of the establishment of two states, in September 1949. And they certainly would not attack in Jerusalem, since, as it were, they would be attacking the United Nations. For this reason, the high Jewish command did not invest efforts to strengthen the city in anticipation of the outbreak of the war. In particular Ben Gurion and the Haganah commanders were mistaken in their appointments of commanders for the city and its environs. At the outbreak of the war Israel Zabodovsky-Amir commanded the Jerusalem district, before which he commanded the Haganah military industry, and was head of the Intelligence Service. Amir's most prominent quality was his loyalty to Ben Gurion, but he was not a leader and his commanding skill was weak. They say the same things also about David Shaltiel who replaced Amir in the Intelligence Service and afterward replaced him in Jerusalem. In appointing Amir and Shaltiel Ben Gurion showed that in his opinion the main problems in Jerusalem would be political and not military, and that the most important thing in bringing up a commander was loyalty to Ben Gurion and not defeating the Arabs on the battle field. Ben Gurion did not understand that without defeating ability, loyalty does not have much value. For these reasons Haganah reached Jerusalem prepared less for war than in other places. This lack of preparedness secured military achievements in the city for the Arabs and motivated them to act with greater force than in other parts of the country. The result: the morale of the Arabs in Jerusalem rose, and the morale of the Jews was at a low point. Already on the third day after the UN General Assembly resolution, the Arabs set fire to the new Jewish commercial center on Mamilla Street. Haganah was caught unprepared and almost did not function that day. The trust of the inhabitants in Haganah was worn down dramatically and there were those that demanded that Etzel receive command of the city. Inventories of food in the city were also low, and there were therefore severe repercussions surrounding continuation of the war. 8 And so, despite relatively weak capability in manpower and weapons, Etzel and Lehi initiated many actions against Arab targets in Jerusalem already when the war broke out, and Lehi even initiated more actions than the two organizations that were larger than it. These actions caused the flight of Arabs and established Jewish control of vital points in the city. a From January, 1948, battle lines were configured between the Jewish quarters and the Arab quarters in the city, and the war continued with less force. In contrast to this, the main war occurred over attempts by the Arabs to block convoys on their way to Jerusalem. Two battalions of Palmach that were established at the outbreak of the war from reserve men conducted the war of the roads on the front between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: the Fifth Battalion under command of Shaul Yaffeh, nicknamed "Zahavi", and his soldiers, nicknamed "Zahavim", and the Sixth Battalion under command of Tzvi Zamir, nicknamed "Foreman", and his soldiers called "Foremanim." Yitzhak Rabin commanded these two battalions as operational officer of the Palmach, and he was in actuality commander of the Jerusalem road front. The war of the roads in the Jerusalem district (and also in other districts) was at least partially a standing war in which the Arabs had many achievements that caused the downfall of the Jews at this stage in the war. The failure of the Jews stemmed from flawed preparation by the supreme command and Haganah, from commanders that did not understand the developments in the war, from lack of investigation into battles and from not drawing conclusions. The men of the recruited brigades of Haganah and Palmach had the ability to undertake reprisal actions through raiding Arab targets. And so in that period very successful reprisal actions were undertaken, and the ones which stand out are the raid on the village of Sasa in the upper Galilee, under the command of Moshe Kalman, and the raid on the command center of the Arab forces in Yahud, under command of Nahum Arieli. Nevertheless, they did not develop an ability to prevent the Arabs from badly harming Hebrew transportation. Mid January, 1948, thirty five Palmach men from the Jerusalem brigade were killed on their way from Hartuv to Gush Etzion, under command of Danny Maas. The thirty five were sent to Gush Etzion to bring plasma to the wounded of a battle that occurred on January 14. a They went on their way at night but erred in navigation and returned to Jerusalem. The next day the British evacuated the wounded to Jerusalem. In spite of this, the mission was not cancelled. The 35 left after a delay, they lost their way on the road and entered the Arab village of Tzurif. All of them were killed in the battle. Even though the battle occurred not far from Gush Etzion, and information about the battle reached Gush Etzion, the commander, Uzi Narkiss, did not send assistance to the fighters. The Arabs desecrated the corpses and disfigured them. Most of the killed were residents of Jerusalem. Heavy mourning fell over the city. 9 The fact that the Arabs did not take any prisoners and that they desecrated the corpses of the fallen, considerably raised the level of hatred toward the Arabs of the region. Jews in all sectors sought revenge. When there was a sobering trend, at the beginning of April, and the Jews started an attack against the Arabs, they achieved revenge, in their own way. These developments did not escape the interest of American agents who were located in the country and strengthened their opposition to a Jewish state in the American state department. According to these reports on March 6, presidential advisor Clark Clifford, who supported the establishment of the state of Israel, assessed that if immediate measures were not taken to enforce peace between Jews and Arabs a war will occur in Israel after the conclusion of the British Mandate on May 15. Such a war will very much harm the prestige of the United States and its interests, and the Soviet Union will exploit this for its benefit. 10 On March 16, the American secretary of state, George Marshall informed the US Ambassador at the UN, Warren Austin, about the decision of the state department, with the president's agreement, to abandon the support for partitioning Palestine into two independent countries, on account of the worsening of the situation in Palestine. 11 On Friday, March 19, Austin declared in the Security Council that there was a change in US policy and it was opposed to the establishment of the state of Israel on May 15. 12 In this announcement the Arabs of Palestine achieved the objective of their war and it seemed that a Jewish state would not be established in Palestine. This political earthquake, as a result of the failures on the Jerusalem road front, and the other severe failures on that front, after the United States reversed itself, motivated Ben Gurion to abandon the strategy of postponing decisions that he maintained since the beginning of the war and he adopted a strategy of decisive defeat. The straw that broke the camel's back was the Arab victory in the battle of "The Hulda Caravan", on March 31, not as a result of the effective functioning of the Arabs, but because the Palmach commanders in the battle did not go out to rescue their soldiers that were surrounded. So as not to fall alive into enemy hands, the last ones ended their lives, by activating explosives in the armored vehicle. A false report was transmitted to Ben Gurion whereby the ones who were killed fell in the battle and that the road to Jerusalem was blocked. On the night between March 31 and April 1 operational order "Nachshon" was formulated, and it stipulated that the operation had two objectives: To bring through a convoy and secure its safety. To open the road to Jerusalem by aggressive actions against enemy village bases in order to bring through additional convoys. 13 During the night between April 2 and 3 the Haganah forces captured the village of Castel, west of Jerusalem after its inhabitants abandoned it. 14 The Arabs attacked the village already on Saturday April 3, and occupied it on Thursday April 8. Haganah, and in particular the fourth battalion of Palmach showed weakness in the Castel campaign. Haganah had heavy losses in this battle. One of Palmach's senior battle commanders, Nahum Arieli, fell in this battle. Occupation of Castel brought about Arab control of the highway to Jerusalem and threatened to bring about a siege on the city. In this reality the conditions were prepared for the attack of Etzel and Lehi on Deir Yassin. As ironic as it may seem, this attack was the most pronounced expression of Ben Gurion's new strategy and it also assured its success to a great measure. At this stage of the war Etzel and Lehi commanders were concerned that the continued failed direction of Ben Gurion and other heads of Haganah would cause the non-establishment of the state of Israel. They decided to take the initiative. The first four months of the war ended with the defeat of Haganah forces, in spite of the complete superiority of its forces over the enemy forces in Palestine, in manpower, in weapons and in fighting quality. The weak point of the Jewish settlement's leadership and of Haganah was the low quality of war leaders and of senior commanders, from the company on up, inasmuch as the commanders were chosen according to their loyalty to the ideology of the leadership and not according to their military abilities. As a result of this, Ben Gurion's strategy of postponing decisions failed. Because of the turn in the position of the United States, and its opposition to the establishment of the state of Israel, the chances that a Jewish state would be established in Palestine were practically finished. Contacts Between Haganah And Etzel and Lehi Contacts between men of Etzel and Lehi and men of Haganah took place all the time. In his book "Nine Measures" in the chapter on Etzel and Lehi in Jerusalem and about the Deir Yassin affair, Yitzhak Levi (Levitza) the head of the Haganah intelligence service, ignored these contacts. It is reasonable to assume that he was a participant in them and in any case could have learned about them, because all the IDF archive documents were open to him and his book even appeared through the "Ma'arachot" publishing house, the IDF publishing house. It is interesting that the officers of the IDF historical department, that read his manuscript before approving publication, made no comment to the author. The head of the history faculty in Haifa University, Prof. Yoav Gelber, in his book "Uprising And Disaster" also ignored these contacts, in the chapter in which he discusses Deir Yassin. But without recognizing the details of these contacts and understanding their significance it is not possible to determine if the Etzel and Lehi attack on Deir Yassin was the initiative of these two organizations, in opposition to the thinking of the Haganah commander of the city, as the historians recruited by the Haganah have claimed, (headed by retired Colonel Dr. Meir Payil), or was it part of the campaign of Jewish control of the road west of Jerusalem, as this book claims. The Haganah commander in Jerusalem, David Shaltiel, was appointed to his post on February 5, 1948, and reached the city the next day. In his book "The Flame Of Revolt" (1996) Yehuda Lapidot relates that a short time afterward, attorney Asher Levitzki initiated a meeting between Shaltiel and the Etzel commander in Jerusalem, Mordechai Raanan, in the home of Palestine's chief rabbi Yitzhak Halevy Herzog. Raanan refused to come to the meeting and sent in his place the district secretary Moshe Ariel. "Shaltiel expressed disappointment that Raanan did not appear at the meeting. He started with a survey of the difficult security situation and proposed cooperation between the two organizations. The intention was to enlist the participation of Etzel in protecting neighborhoods on the edge of the city and to deploy soldiers for accompanying convoys. In addition to this Shaltiel demanded that Etzel cease attacking the British regime in Jerusalem. Ariel replied that he is prepared to enlist the participation of Etzel in protecting positions and even in accompanying convoys, but he was not prepared to guarantee stopping the fighting against the British. The weapons of Etzel were turned at the moment to cope with the Arabs, but there is no assurance that the British would leave the country, unless this is forced on them through the Hebrew underground. Shaltiel's reaction was very harsh. "If you don't halt your activity against the British, we will prevent it through the force of the service. In that case we will be forced to turn a large part of our effort to the struggle against you." The meeting ended without agreement. That same month the men of Etzel confiscated a quantity of cloth from a Jewish tradesman. Mordechai Raanan relates that after the confiscation he met with David Shaltiel in the offices of the Jewish Agency. Here is Raanan's story: "After the confiscation of the goods and cloth from Blizovski's store in Jerusalem, Shaltiel called me and proposed to me an operative agreement whereby our men will be integrated in the dfense of Jerusalem and will be subordinated operationally to the Haganah, but will stay independent. The Haganah will provide equipment, food and uniforms to them. If the proposal is rejected, Shaltiel said, the Haganah will prevent by force all our efforts to confiscate supplies for our men. I rejected the proposal and I said that the Haganah's considerations in Jerusalem are determined not according to the local needs but according to orders from Tel Aviv, and the official leadership of the Jewish settlement announced its agreement to partition and internationalization of Jerusalem. So Shaltiel asked me what I am proposing. I proposed a different operational coordination to him, whereby the activities of the war in Jerusalem will be determined in accordance with the final objective – liberation of all of Jerusalem and its annexation to the territory of the Hebrew state that will be established. To that end the connection of Jerusalem to the lowland area needs to be strengthened, which is to say expand the neck of the western bottle, and also to occupy Sheikh Jarach and to be based on Mt. Scopus, in order to look out on the approach roads to Jerusalem from the direction of Jericho and Nablus, and to cut off the supply lines of the Arab Legion. "I informed Shaltiel that we are prepared to take part in this plan. Shaltiel promised to give me an answer in a little while. We are informed that Lehi also is negotiating with Haganah. I talked with the Lehi commander in Jerusalem, Yehoshua Zatler, and we reached the conclusion that Shaltiel intends to isolate one of the two organizations and afterward to subdue the members of the isolated organization. Zatler agreed to uphold the Etzel plan as a basis for cooperation of the two organizations with Haganah. At first he proposed occupying Shuafat, in order to isolate Arab Jerusalem, and even held his view, but after my operational officer, Gal, proposed occupying Deir Yassin, Zatler agreed to our proposal." 15 Here is Yehoshua Zatler's story about Lehi's contacts with the Haganah commanders and about his contacts with David Shaltiel. "From the beginning of the war we coordinated our activities with the men of Haganah. At first these were local coordinations, so that the men of Haganah will not harm us and we won't harm them. Afterward the contacts became established. My operational officer, Mordechai Ben Uziahu (Dror), met regularly with the commander of the "Moriah" battalion, Zalman Maret. One day Dror told me: 'Dami a said that Shaltiel is asking to see you'. I was illegal after the escape from Acco Jail, and I did not trust Shaltiel fully. I was concerned that he intends to hand me over to the British. I came to the meeting with a guard, who took position in the vicinity. We met in a private house on Rambam Street in the Rehavia neighborhood. Maret was present. we spoke about the future of Jerusalem, and each of us presented his outlook. We decided to meet regularly. The meetings would take place in Maret's apartment in the Beit Ha Kerem neighborhood. "Shaltiel proposed to me that my men operate against Arab villages in the Judean hills. I told him: 'there are burning problems in Jerusalem, and occupation of the village that you propose will not give us anything. we want Jerusalem and we are seeking to operate in the Old City, in Katamon and Sheikh Jarach, and if you want to put distance between us and our historic capital, this will not be given to you. I left the meeting and I published all its details in a poster that our men posted around Jerusalem, so that they would not say that Lehi caused an agreement to fail and does not want unity. But I did not want to cut off contact completely. Therefore I told Shaltiel that we will stay in touch, and that when we go into action we will inform him, so that Jews will not fight against Jews and so that there will be interim coordination. And so every time we went out to a penetration in Katamon, and when we went into action in other places, we coordinated the activity with the Haganah. Dror and Maret continued to meet, and there were also meetings at other levels." 16 According to Shaltiel there were no planned meetings and orderly discussions between him and Raanan and Zalter, but there were some accidental meetings like these, "and my main contact with the dissidents was through intermediaries: Yakov Herzog, the main contact between me and Etzel, Yeshurun Shiff, and others." 17 In March, Shaltiel reported to Ben Gurion about a local arrangement he had achieved with the men of Lehi and Etzel, and according to this report Shaltiel guaranteed not to interfere with certain activities of the dissidents on condition they receive agreement of Haganah headquarters in Jerusalem for these activities. Ben Gurion related this to the head of the Haganah national command, Yisrael Galili, and he reprimanded Shaltiel and wrote to him: "It is not found correct to inform Yakud Leon about this even after the fact. I find it correct for you to inform me of conclusions before details of the matters are known. I demand a detailed report, because "local" agreements have a significance that is not local. In particular in days of negotiation on the settlement. Write down for yourself, in all seriousness, that you are not entitled to arrange a settlement with the dissidents without receiving prior confirmation, lest we will need to cancel your guarantees, as has already happened." 18 This letter from Galili indicates that there were differences of opinion between him and Ben Gurion regarding the dissidents and regarding Shaltiel. It also indicates that Shaltiel saw himself directly subordinate to Ben Gurion. Yehoshua Arieli, who commanded the youth battalions in Jerusalem and was affiliated with Shaltiel's headquarters, testified: "before Deir Yassin there was cooperation between Haganah and Etzel in Jerusalem. Lehi did not join the arrangement. The cooperation was not complete, it had flaws, but it held up." 19 Ivri Elad, a who was then in the "Foreman" company had contacts with commanders and intelligence men of Lehi. Foreman soldier Nahum Gross, related that there were "secret contacts between men of Palmach in Jerusalem and men of Etzel and Lehi, regarding the possibility of uniting or cooperating. A headquarters officer conducted the contacts on behalf of Palmach. It is possible that the headquarters itself was not involved in the negotiations. Nothing came out of this matter but the participation of the Palmach men in the battle over Deir Yassin." 20 On April 4, five days before the attack on Deir Yassin, representatives of the sides signed "Details Of The Cooperation Agreement Of The Lehi Fighters In The Campaign Over Jerusalem" The following is written in this document: "The Lehi movement will inform the Haganah command about the structure of the unit in preparation for activities in the Jerusalem district, about the division into action units that is acceptable to Lehi – squads, platoons, companies, about the number of men, the service list of the commanders and nicknames of their contacts, and also the about the inventory of Lehi's weapons and ammunition in Jerusalem. The district commander will supply to Lehi food, salaries and clothing in accordance with the list that will be provided, and will complete the ammunition list according to reports after each action." According to that document a meeting was scheduled for the next day (April 5) at 6:00 PM between David Shaltiel and Yehoshua Zalter "in the place fixed for meetings with Shapira." b This document was signed by 'Shadmi', i.e. Zalman Maret, commander of the "Moriah" battalion. 21 In the Shaltiel-Zalter meeting the negotiations blew up. On April 6 the announcer on the Lehi broadcasting station in Jerusalem stated: The negotiations with Haganah about joint leadership in the city, have failed because of the refusal of the Haganah to include representatives of Etzel and Lehi in the city's command center. The commanders of Etzel and Lehi will set up a joint fighting leadership exclusively on their own. 22 Yigal Yadin testified before the staff of the IDF History Branch: "regarding the dissidents, Shaltiel acted according to orders, or at least not against orders. Shaltiel was among the few commanders that would report directly to Ben Gurion, and he received direct orders from Ben Gurion." 23 And Zalman Maret testified: "before Deir Yassin I would maintain contact between Haganah and Lehi in Jerusalem. We cooperated with them. When we required aid from the dissidents, they generally replied that, 'we need to preserve our forces for the period in which you cease to operate. Lehi had around eighty fighters (in Jerusalem). We didn't get involved in their planning There was coordination in intelligence and the use of bases. The Lehi men connected me with the Etzel men. Sometimes there were contacts between us. Etzel had one hundred twenty armed men." 24 After many years, Lehi's intelligence men in Jerusalem, Moshe Barzilay ("Yosef") and Moshe Edelstein ("Amos") specified the names of the Haganah men that met with them in 1948: Meir Batz, a staff member from Shaltiel's headquarters ; Naaman Stavi, commander of the Jewish police in Jerusalem; Yeshurun Shiff, the commander of the "Machmash" battalion; Tzion Eldad the operational and intelligence officer of "Etzioni" brigade; Tzvi Zamir, commander of the sixth battalion of Palmach; Ivri Elad, a man of the "Foreman" unit; Aryeh Amit ("Tefer"). 25 the commander of a platoon from this battalion. Stavi, Shiff and Amit confirmed this testimony to the author. Barzilay related: "Naaman Stavi was my fixed contact person in Haganah. We met in Café Hermon, behind the Jewish Agency buildings. When he wanted to meet me, he left a note for me there, and when I wanted to meet him, I sat by one of the tables and after a half hour he appeared, generally. We talked about operational coordination, about confiscating money from people and about confiscation of food from stores and warehouses. Haganah was opposed to confiscation of food, and so we made an agreement between us, that they will supply us with food. Yeshurun Shiff, commander of the "Machmash" battalion, who was one of Shaltiel's fixed contact persons among the heads of Etzel and Lehi, proposed to the commanders of these organizations, as mentioned, that they combine their soldiers in the battle over Castel. This was at the beginning of April, before Yosef Tabenkin was appointed commander of the district on April 6. The Etzel and Lehi commanders did not accept his proposal. They claimed they did not have enough vehicles and they wanted to operate under their own command. Later Shiff related 26 "I tried on my own initiative, to recruit the dissidents (to take part in the battle over Castel). I talked this over with the Etzel's operational officer. a He and his comrades agreed, on condition that they will receive approval from Tel Aviv, that they will command (their) force, and will receive weapons from us. I agreed to the first condition and the third I discussed (also) with the Lehi men. (They) presented the same conditions, and they said that there is a need to attack in Wadi Ein Kerem. The Etzel men wanted Shaltiel to request this from them officially. I gave Shaltiel a report, and he forbid me from meeting with them " b In a meeting with Etzel and Lehi commanders Zatler proposed attacking the village of Shuafat, as a reprisal for the massacre of the "Atarot Convoy" on March 25, and thereby neutralize the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarach and connect Mt. Scopus and Neve Yakov to Hebrew Jerusalem. The operational officers of the organizations replied to Zatler that they do not have forces to attack Shuafat, because in the village there are strong positions of Arabs and British. Someone proposed occupying Ein Kerem and proceeding from there in the direction of Gush Etzion. 27 Some days before this meeting a unit of Lehi men patrolled in the vicinity of Shuafat and its commander, Shimon Monita, a Haganah agent, reported on its findings and not only to Zatler. Monita, whose nickname in Lehi was "Gad" was a "an adherent" a, and his nickname in the intelligence service was "Esther." He also reported about the patrol in Shuafat to his handler, a Haganah man. In 1987 Monita told the author that the handler said to him: "tell your gang that in Shuafat there are strong positions of British, and they have no chance to occupy the village. There will be a massacre there." Monita did not listen to this advice. "I could not tell this to my Lehi commanders without exposing myself, but it seems that higher people told them similar things." Monita suggests here that there was an operational dialogue between the senior commanders of Haganah and Lehi commanders in Jerusalem. The testimony of Moshe Barzilay about the meeting with David Shaltiel: "We met with Shaltiel at the time of the Castel battles. He said: 'If you want to help and initiate an operation, take Deir Yassin. We had no doubt that he was interested in (this) operation. We demanded his agreement in writing, because we did not believe him. He said that Haganah intends to build an air field between Givat Shaul and Deir Yassin, and therefore it will be incumbent on us to hold the village, if we will occupy it." 28 From everything stated above it is possible to determine that there were regular and intensive contacts between David Shaltiel and his emissaries and the commanders and Etzel and Lehi and their agents in Jerusalem. It seems that only David Shaltiel knew about the contacts – and what Shaltiel knew, David Ben Gurion also knew. Consequently, David Ben Gurion knew about the planned attack on Deir Yassin and even approved it and approved David Shaltiel's aiding Etzel and Lehi in undertaking the attack, as David Shaltiel did. The Active Individuals Before we describe the affair's sequence of events, we will devote a few words to the leading characters in this drama: Jerusalem District Commander – David Shaltiel; Etzel Commander in Jerusalem – Mordechai Raanan (Kaufman); Lehi Commander in Jerusalem – Yehoshua Zatler; Commander of the Jerusalem unit against the dissidents – Meir Payil (PIlevski); and commanders of the forces that took part in the attack: Ben Zion Cohen and Yehuda Lapidot from Etzel and Pithiya Zelibanski from Lehi. David Shaltiel was born in Hamburg in 1903 and in the War of Independence was already mature in years. He served in the French Foreign Legion and received an excellent service ribbon. In the mid 1930s, he enlisted in Haganah and was sent on its behalf to Europe to acquire weapons. He was caught by the Gestapo, underwent severe torture and was jailed in a concentration camp. He was released in March 1939, returned to Israel and was appointed head of counter-espionage in the Intelligence Service. In 1941 he received the command of the Haganah branch in Haifa and in 1946 he was appointed head of the Intelligence Service. At the beginning of February 1948 he received the command of Jerusalem, after its previous commander, Yisrael Amir, was removed from his command. 29 Here we will note only that in Shaltiel's reports on the Deir Yassin affair there are some things that contradict what emerges from all the other reports, and also contradict some other reports from Shaltiel himself. Mordechai Raanan joined Etzel at age fourteen, completed the officer's course and commanded a "Deputies" course. In the days of the "Season" men of the Haganah caught him, interrogated him violently and released him. He was occupied with instruction and propaganda in Haifa and Jerusalem, and was appointed Etzel commander in Jerusalem after the British exiled his predecessor, Yitzhak Yignes (Avinoam)30 to Africa. Yehoshua Zatler was a member of Etzel, resigned from it when the division occurred and was one of the founders of Lehi and head of Avraham Stern's (Yair) headquarters. He was jailed for some years in Acco Prison and escaped from it with his comrades, some time before the outbreak of the war. When he returned to Tel Aviv he did not find a common language with members of the Lehi central committee, and therefore established "an autonomous organization" in Jerusalem, according to him. Misunderstandings between him and Lehi commander Natan Yellin Mor, became an open conflict after the Deir Yassin affair.31 Ben Zion Cohen who was an Etzel platoon commander and base commander in the Etz Hayim neighborhood went through a commando course in the British army during the Second World War and afterward served in the police in the Hebrew settlements and took part in many Etzel operations. 32 Pithiya Zelibanski a Tel Aviv native and part of a family from Hebron, took part in many Lehi operations and was considered one of the bravest men of this organization. 33 Yehuda Lapidot was commander of an Etzel platoon in Jerusalem, and one of three Jerusalem commanders of this organization that went through supplemental training in regular warfare with instructors that served in the British army. 34 Meir Payil is the man that exploded the affair in 1948 and maintained it on a large and small fire for decades. Payil served in Palmach, concluded a platoon officer's course in Haganah, took part in "Season" and commanded a Jerusalem unit that operated against the dissidents on behalf of the Intelligence Service. "Toward the end of 1947 I was responsible for operations against the dissidents in Jerusalem, subordinate to the officer of the General Headquarters in charge of this activity", Payil testified before the authors of the history of the Haganah. " I had a unit of ten comrades, Palmachniks and men of the field force and intelligence service in Jerusalem." In later testimony Payil claimed that the activity of the unit in his command against Etzel and Lehi, was ended on the outbreak of the War of Independence, but all the other sources (including his earlier testimony) refute this testimony. 35 On March 18, 1948, Yisrael Galili approved in a telegram the proposal of David Shaltiel to break up the unit, to attach its men to the military police that was then established, and to appoint Payil commander of the military police. 36 After ten days Payil requested a budget from David Cohen (coordinator of the activity against the dissidents) "in order to preserve the unit", did not receive it, and sent a telegram to Yigal Alon: "The operating unit has been transferred to the military police in the district. I have nothing to do in it. Etzioni is demanding to keep me by him. Awaiting orders from you." 37 The unit was broken up and Payil was without work when the men of Etzel and Lehi attacked Deir Yassin. He also was not included in Shaltiel's contacts with the dissidents. Was Deir Yassin A Quiet Village? Towards the outbreak of the War of Independence the village of Deir Yassin was controlled by the Jewish neighborhood Givat Shaul and had no chance of surviving the war. The result: on August 20, 1947 a local peace agreement was signed between Deir Yassin and Givat Shaul, on the initiative of men of the Neighborly Relations Department of the Jewish Agency headed by Ezra Danin and the Arab Department of the Histadrut Labor Federation. This was after the Supreme Arab Committee called on the Arabs to undertake attacks in anticipation of the UN General Assembly debates. In that same period pacts like this were signed between Arab and Jewish villages throughout the country, including the village of Castel, that Haganah attacked and occupied, exactly a week before the occupation of Deir Yassin. 38 In January 1948 representatives of both sides renewed the agreement, since the inhabitants of Deir Yassin invited the police to eject an Arab gang that tried to locate itself in the village's flour mill. The representatives obligated themselves to eject men of the gangs from their village also in the future, or to report about them to the police. In return they were promised the right of passage by vehicle through the neighborhood of Givat Shaul to Jerusalem. Details of the agreement were reported to the Haganah district command and to the Arabs' emergency committee in the Old City. 39 On 15 January the intelligence service reported: "Representatives of Deir Yassin have made a peace pact with Givat Shaul. These are the terms of the agreement: 'The people of Deir Yassin will notify about every case of finding men of the gangs in the vicinity (in case they do not succeed in pushing them out of the place) according to the following signs: in the day, the people of Deir Yassin will hang laundry in the agreed place (two white pieces and in the middle a black piece). At night, the people of Deir Yassin will signal with a flashlight in three points. The people of Givat Shaul will answer with a line of light. The people of Deir Yassin will conclude with three points. After the abovementioned exchange of signs, it is necessary to meet in an agreed place with an exchange of signs. The symbol will change three times." 40 On January 5, 1948 the intelligence service reported: " The villages of Abu-Gosh, Colonia, Castel and Deir Yassin are definitely quiet and refraining from aggressive action against Jews." The commander of Givat Shaul, Yona Ben Sasson, has testified that during the whole half year before the war there was not even one incident between the inhabitants of Deir Yassin and the Jews. 41 But we find other testimonies From a hill eight hundred meters above sea level, a distance of seven hundred meters west of Givat Shaul, Deir Yassin had control over the neighborhoods west of Jerusalem, over the entrance to it and over the Motza settlement. According to the last Mandatory census there were around six hundred inhabitants in Deir Yassin. 42 In April 1948 around 1200 people were settled in this village, and only five hundred of them were its fixed inhabitants. The others were refugees from Lifta, from Sheikh Bader, from Romema and other neighborhoods, and the agreement did not obligate them. In the days of the First World War and also in October 1928 the inhabitants of Deir Yassin attacked the Jewish inhabitants of Givat Shaul. During 1928 inhabitants of Lifta, Ein Kerem and Deir Yassin attacked Beit Ha Kerem, the Montefiore neighborhood and Givat Shaul, and they tried to cut off transportation from the low land area to Jerusalem. 43 A figure from the Arab intelligence service in Jerusalem, Ovadia, a who was the Haganah contact person with Deir Yassin, met frequently with inhabitants of the village and with their Mukhtar, who was a Haganah informant. 44 So the intelligence service was informed that on March 3, 1948 a unit of the men of Abed El Kader El Husseini entered Deir Yassin and planned to attack Givat Shaul. Representatives of the village expressed opposition, and the unit called off the attack. 45 On March 23, the inhabitants of Deir Yassin refused to host Iraqi and Syrian units of the "Army Of Rescue" despite the order of the Supreme Arab Committee. 46 On April 4, when the battles over Castel occurred, Abed El Kader's deputy, Kamel Arikat, proposed to the representatives of Deir Yassin and Ein Kerem to place soldiers in their villages so that they would protect their security, and the representatives of Deir Yassin answered him: "we have peaceful relations (with the Jews) and introduction of foreigners will upset them." Arikat did not give consideration to their opposition, and he introduced soldiers into Deir Yassin. After many years, the head of the intelligence service in Jerusalem, Yitzhak Levy, mentioned half of this incident in a letter to Menachem Begin: "Deir Yassin was a quiet village, like Abu Gosh, and it made an agreement with us that it will not give shelter to the gangs. The village withstood heavy pressure from the Arab command and did not give in. Five days before the attack on the village, Kamel Arikat summoned the representatives of the village to him and demanded that they shelter gangs of soldiers. They refused because they were afraid of us and they trusted in the agreement we made with them." 47 The inhabitants of more than a few villages that tried to preserve good neighborly relations with the Jews (Colonia, Castel and others) did not withstand the pressure of the Arab activists and military commanders. The intelligence service was also informed about these developments in Deir Yassin. Mordechai Gihon, b the intelligence officer in district 2 of Haganah in Jerusalem conducted two intelligence raids in Ein Kerem and brought documents from there that attested to regular contact between Deir Yassin and bases of the volunteers from Syria and Iraq in Ein Kerem. A short time before the attack Gihon's look-out men reported many armed men moving between Ein Kerem and Deir Yassin, including some wearing Iraqi uniforms, and many Arab military men entering Deir Yassin and only a few of them returning to Ein Kerem. Gihon brought these findings to the commander of district 2, Moshe Bar Nun. According to Gihon's testimony the head of the intelligence service in Jerusalem, Yitzhak Levy, did not meet with him, after this report, did not instruct him and did not ask for additional details from him. 48 In his book "Nine Measures" Levy does not mention these reports that refute his thesis about the Deir Yassin affair. At the end of December 1947 the "Arab intelligence service" eavesdropping unit recorded a telephone conversation about an Arab unit about to leave Ein Kerem and attack the Bayit Va Gan neighborhood in west Jerusalem. Haganah soldiers ambushed this unit and a battle occurred south of Deir Yassin. One Arab was killed and his comrades withdrew. From this incident it is possible to learn that the agreement with Deir Yassin did not assure quiet for the Jews of west Jerusalem. 49 In 1952, some men of Etzel and Lehi who were wounded in the battle over Deir Yassin sued the ministry of defense of the state of Israel, and demanded that it recognize them as disabled in war. Here is the testimony of Haganah member, Arnold Shaefer in this trial: "In February/March 1948 I was a driver for Haganah headquarters in Jerusalem…I was in Givat Shaul and the vicinity…I received an order to transport someone from Givat Shaul to Deir Yassin…The officer in charge of Haganah in Givat Shaul or one of his aides…ordered me to transport two members of Haganah in watchman's dress. It was said that foreign Arabs were discovered in Deir Yassin, and they mentioned…also Iraqis. The watchmen that I transported needed to cause the ejection of the foreign Arabs. We did not encounter opposition during the trip. We stopped before two houses at the front of the village. The watchmen turned to the buildings. When we reached a distance of one hundred meters from them, an old man came out from one of the houses, approached us and started a conversation. What they said, I don't know. Afterward we returned to the car and we traveled to Givat Shaul. On the way back gunfire started. We returned to Givat Shaul and the gunfire continued. The gunfire was from two sides. Men of Haganah started to advance in the direction of the farthest houses in Deir Yassin. We announced to them that a British police armored car is approaching, and the ones advancing returned the way they came." 50 On March 30, Mordechai Gihon reported: "One hundred fifty men, mostly Iraqis, entered Deir Yassin. The inhabitants are abandoning from fear of the foreigners and reprisal action on the part of the Jews." Yitzhak Levy relayed this information to the head of the intelligence service in Tel Aviv after ten days, and it was distributed to the senior commanders of Haganah on 9 April, the day of the attack. 51 Five days before then, on April 4, a notice was published in the newspaper Davar: "The western neighborhoods of Jerusalem, Beit Ha Kerem and Bayit Va Gan were attacked on Friday night (April 2) with gunfire from the direction of Deir Yassin, Ein Kerem, and Colonia. The infelligence officer of the Etzioni brigade, Tzion Eldad, reported to David Shaltiel on April 4: "There is a gathering in Deir Yassin. Armed men have come out in the direction of lower Motza, northwest of Givat Shaul. They are firing on passing cars." 52 On that same day, Michael (Micky) Haft, deputy commander of the "Beit Horin" battalion reported: "A passenger car from Motza was attacked near the flour mill (below Deir Yassin village), and it stands there. There is gunfire against it. You should also dispatch an armored car with weapons. There is concern that the highway is cut off." 53 The men of Lehi who were traveling that day (April 4) to Abu Gosh in an armored car, to buy weapons from Arabs, were attacked in the same place (beside the flour mill) at six in the morning. Their commander, David Gotleib, related that the driver opened the door of the armored car and fired in the direction of the source of the gunfire. In Gotleib's view, the ones firing were not people of the village, but volunteers that penetrated there. The intelligence officer reported this incident to the Haganah commanders in Motza and Castel. 54 On that same day at 5:00 PM Haft sent a telegram to his commanders in Jerusalem: "In order to prevent (an attack) on lower Motza, a cut off of the road to Jerusalem and capture of the southern position at Tzoba, Deir Yassin needs to be captured." 55 David Shaltiel sent a telegram to Shimon Avidan early on April 9, at 2:40 AM (around two hours before the attack started): "The Arabs of Deir Yassin have positioned a mortar toward the highway in order to bombard the convoys." 56 Despite all the abovementioned information, that was supposed to be recorded for the head of the intelligence service in Jerusalem, Yitzhak Levy, and which was revealed for him in the IDF archives, he wrote in his book "Nine Measures" that was published by the IDF publishing house Ma'arachot in 1986, that the claim of Etzel and Lehi that Syrians and Iraqis were in Deir Yassin, " has no factual basis whatsoever." 57 It is strange that Prof. Benny Morris assesses Levy's book, as mentioned, as "comprehensive and fair." In his testimony to Amy Isseroff in 1998, Meir Payil stressed that the village was quiet from the start of the War of Independence until the attack on it, and that he did not hear that there was gunfire from it against Hebrew Jerusalem or on the road to it. 58 Consequently, Meir Payil has lied or he did not know the facts. One way or the other he is revealed as an unreliable source. Inasmuch as one cannot assume that Yitzhak Levy, Meir Payil, and the officers of the IDF history department, who read Levy's research before it was published, did not see the abovementioned documents, the conclusion arises that the claim that Deir Yassin was a quiet village is a manipulation, and aimed to blur the reality of 1948. So it follows that the first of the five main claims that have formed the narrative of Deir Yassin, are refuted in principle. The question for which we seek an answer is: how come former men of Haganah, historians like Benny Morris, and officers of the IDF history department, used and still use manipulative claims to justify "a massacre" of Jews against Arabs. In any case they have needed a good reason, which we will try to expose. A Stage In Our Plan Refutation of the claim that Etzel and Lehi attacked the village without the approval of the institutions of the organized Jewish settlement, and in opposition to Jewish military interests. In his statement about the reasons for the attack on Deir Yassin Mordechi Raanan said: "From Mt. Hebron and from the city of Hebron the Arabs had a logistical route to Castel, via Bethlehem, Beit Jalla, Ein Kerem, and Tzova. Deir Yassin was a forward position that provided cover for this route. We wanted to help Haganah in the battles for Castel. We said we would occupy Deir Yassin, take control of the Arab logistical route, and ease the pressure on Castel. In that period Operation "Nachshon" began, and Deir Yassin controlled the last piece of highway at the entrance to Jerusalem. Taking control of Castel would not solve the problem, since the Arabs would block the highway beside Deir Yassin. Therefore I claim that occupation of the village was integrated in the Haganah strategy." 59 The Plan Of Etzel And Lehi After Raanan and Zatler decided to attack Deir Yassin together, representatives of the two organizations met: from Etzel – the operational officer Yehoshua Gal; Ben Zion Cohen (who was appointed commander of the attacking force of Etzel); and the platoon commander, Yehuda Lapidot. And from Lehi – the operational officer, Mordechai Ben Uziahu (Dror), Pithiya (Yoad) Zelibansky (who was appointed commander of the attacking force of Lehi) and David Shnives (Zamir) Their plan: at dawn Lehi will attack from the north, and Etzel will attack from the east, an additional force of Etzel will take position on the Sharapa ridge (Mt. Herzl) and block the way of Arab reinforcements that are liable to come from Ein Kerem and Malha. The Etzel and Lehi commanders assessed that the battle would be easy, if it occurs at all, and it was more reasonable that the Arabs would not fight at all. a Until then, Etzel and Lehi operated in small units, and they never concentrated a large force for an operation. In their view one hundred twenty soldiers was a very large force. They believed that the very appearance of the force would cause the collapse of the village's defenders. Therefore, they conceded on the advantage of surprise and decided to send an armored car with a loudspeaker to the approach to the village before the attack, to call on the inhabitants to surrender and to inform them that the road to Ein Kerem is open. They believed that the foreign soldiers and also the inhabitants of the village would flee immediately. Later on Yehuda Lapidot related that when they discussed the question of how to deal with the inhabitants that would not flee, there were Lehi men that proposed killing them, in order to frighten the Arabs in the whole country and to raise the morale of the Jews of Jerusalem, but he and his comrades, the Etzel commanders, had reservations about their proposal, claiming that this matter belongs in the political field, and they said that they would bring the proposal to their headquarters. Ben Zion Cohen (an Etzel man) later related that there were disagreements also on the question of what to do with prisoners, and that most of the ones present in the meeting said that the adults should be killed, and also those among the elderly, women and children that will fight, while he and Lapidot claimed that civilians should not be harmed. In that same testimony, Cohen said: "We could see that the desire to avenge was strong, after they struck us in Gush Etzion a and Atarot. b My opinion was that if fighting develops, one should not enter a house without throwing a grenade in it or without using explosives." According to him: "it was decided to transmit severe instructions regarding prisoners, to refrain from harming them, unless they resist, and to transport them to Arab villages." Lapidot related that the Etzel headquarters in Jerusalem ordered him and his soldiers to behave according to the Geneva convention, and the men of Lehi accepted the ruling. It was agreed that Etzel would supply the weapons – thirty rifles, thirty five Sten guns produced by Etzel and three machine guns – and Lehi would supply the explosives and pistols. April 7 was fixed as the date for the attack, because the battle for Castel was then underway. But Deir Yassin was attacked two days afterward, on April 9 because the preparations took longer than expected. 60 Haganah Knew About The Plan In most of the agreements and contacts between David Shaltiel and men of his headquarters and Etzel and Lehi commanders in Jerusalem, Zalman Maret was the contact person for Haganah. These contacts were secret, and most of the senior commanders – including men of Shaltiel's headquarters – did not know about them. Others knew only pieces of matters. Meir Payil definitely did not know about them, because he was from the men of Shaltiel's headquarters and was not close to him, and in the present period he was without a function and without a position. After the battle for Deir Yassin Shaltiel claimed that there were no agreements and no contacts. Some of the Haganah commanders in Jerusalem have given testimony about what happened in Deir Yassin, and some of them have not been diligent about the distinction between facts and propaganda. In 1960 David Shaltiel told staff members of the IDF History Department: "I cannot claim that I did not know about the operation. A day before the operation (April 8) I was informed about it by Yeshurun Shiff. I met with men of Lehi and I informed them that I am against the operation. I stressed that the village is friendly toward us. If it is their desire to work to rescue the city, there are more important districts and functions. But they informed me that in any case the operation to capture the village would be undertaken, and that this was a punitive mission. I said that in that case it would be incumbent on them to hold the village. My directive was that they should be deterred from the operation because they do not want to be held down. I proposed to them to help us in Castel." 61 The operations officer of the Etzioni brigade, Tzion Eldad, has testified that Shaltiel related to him that Etzel and Lehi plan to attack Deir Yassin, and that he Eldad told him: "this is a quiet village and its inhabitants have not bothered us." Eldad confirmed: "others targets were proposed to the dissidents but they refused." 62 Meir Payil: "a day or two before the Deir Yassin affair, I met a comfrade, a Lehi man, Moshe Idelstein – who was once in Palmach and knew me from Company 4 (but I think that he did not know what my function was in Jerusalem) a – and he told me that Etzel and Lehi are going out to attack Deir Yassin and that it was worthwhile for me to come see how they operate. b I immediately ran to David Shaltiel and he told me that the men of Etzel informed him about their plan to raid Deir Yassin, and that he told them that Haganah has an agreement with this village and there is no sense in raiding a quiet village, and he proposed other targets to them, Ein Kerem or Colonia, c but they refused. David (Shaltiel) told me that he was deliberating very much whether to approve this operation; it occurred to him that there is liable to be a massacre there. In the mood of those days it was hard to prevent an operation of Etzel and Lehi by force, and even if Shaltiel had wanted to counter it, he did not have forces for that. He assessed that the men of Etzel and Lehi would also operate even without his approval, therefore he approved, on condition that they remain in the village after its occupation, and defend it against an Arab counter-attack. I remember that I expressed my amazement over his giving approval, but I did not argue with him. I understood that there was no alternative. I already had no authority to decide to counter the attack on Deir Yassin, and here the commander of the district already approved it." d The head of the Jerusalem intelligence service, Yitzhak Levy, was also on the way to being discharged from his post, after his part in the oversight of the explosion of a car bomb in the national institutions building. e In his book Levy wrote "when I was informed about Shaltiel's letter to Etzel (see below) I rushed to him and I presented to him the severity of the act. Inhabitants of the village are loyal to the agreement between us and them, and they must not be harmed in such an ugly fashion. I asked for permission to inform the inhabitants and to advise them to evacuate the village, without revealing to them that there is about to be an attack. Shaltiel rejected my approach and he said that he cannot endanger an operation of Jews by any hint to the Arabs, even if there is an agreement with them. I think today that if Shaltiel had forbidden the two organizations from attacking, in consideration of the agreement with Deir Yassin, they would have refrained from attacking the village." 63 A Stage In The Haganah Plan Here is part of a letter that Shaltiel sent to Raanan and Zalter when things happened on April 7, 1948: "I am informed that you are planning to undertake an operation against Deir Yassin. I wish to call your attention to the fact that capturing Deir Yassin and holding it is one stage in our overall plan. I have no opposition to your undertaking the operation, on condition that it is within your power to hold it. If it is not in your power to do this, I warn you against blowing up the village which…will bring the inhabitants to leave it and capturing ruins and abandoned houses by foreign forces. Such a situation will be a burden instead of lightening the general campaign, and a second occupation of the place will be tied to large numbers of sacrifices among our men. Another reason I wish to bring up is that if foreign forces will be attracted to the place, this will interfere with our plan to set up our 64 aerodrome." a In this letter of Shaltiel's the agreement between the inhabitants of Deir Yassin and Givat Shaul is not mentioned, and there is also nothing said in it about the refusal of the village's men to accommodate the Iraqi and Syrian soldiers, or about their opposition to the pressure of Abed El Kader El Husseini. The sentence: " Occupying Deir Yassin and holding it is one stage in our general plan", refutes the claim that Haganah's commanders did not see a purpose in occupying Deir Yassin, and strengthens the claim that the testimonies of Yitzhak Levy and Meir Payil are fabricated and their purpose is to justify after the fact the blood libel with which they falsely accused Etzel and Lehi after occupation of the village. This and more: five days before then Shaltiel initiated the occupation of Castel village that was abandoned by its inhabitants and captured by the men of Abed El Kader El Husseini. The lesson of the occupation of Castel and the battles that occurred in it taught Shaltiel that a village inhabited with its Arab residents is better for the Jews than ruins with foreign forces. Haganah Cooperates In Planning In the report that Mordechai Gihon, the region's intelligence officer, sent to Zalman Maret the day after the battle (on April 10), it states: "Aid to the dissidents is under our control. The liaison officer of the dissidents gave the zero hour. We gave fitting orders to our positions related to aid at the time of withdrawal and medical assistance." 65 After many years, Gihon related that his commanders told him that there was an agreement between Haganah and the dissidents about the attack on Deir Yassin, and that Haganah was responsible for blocking the road between Deir Yassin and Ein Kerem, and they instructed him to station a Spandau machine gun on the Sharapa ridge and take control with gunfire over the road. Gihon and his comrade spent the night in Givat Shaul on April 8, in order to go out to their position at dawn on April 9. 66 This testimony indicates joint planning and execution of Haganah, Lehi and Etzel, in opposition to the testimonies of Meir Payil and Yitzhak Levy. From the report of the intelligence service: "Before the battle the men of Etzel in a meeting with representatives of Haganah gave details of their plans, including the zero hour. In that meeting it was determined that to the extent that Etzel and Lehi are forced to withdraw, Haganah forces will cover the withdrawing force." b Only in 2002, did Haganah man Meir Avizohar take courage and reveal a bit of the truth about the involvement of the organization in the attack on Deir Yassin. In his book: "Moriah In Jerusalem In 5708 (1948) – The First Field Force Battalion In The Battles For Jerusalem": "Lehi… asked Haganah to guard the approach roads to the village, in case of speeding in of enemy reinforcement and in order to bring wounded out to the extent necessary. Shaltiel approved this request after it was pressed on Zalman Maret, commander of 'Moriah'. Both stayed in Givat Shaul during the operation, which bordered on Deir Yassin. Palmach allocated a platoon for guarding the access roads to the village and positioned a mortar in case needed. While Moriah battalion positioned a machine gun unit on the overlook of the village of Sharapa, in order to disrupt the possibility of speeding in of reinforcements from Ein Kerem." 67 Before the attack Mordechai Ben Uziahu (Dror) and Zalman Maret coordinated its steps and communications arrangements. Later on Zatler related that after one of the coordination meetings Dror told him that Maret requested, in Shaltiel's name, some containers of explosives. Dror gave the explosives to Maret, which Lehi had in ample quantity, and he received in return a container full of bullets for the Bren machine gun. 68 Moshe Solomon, a platoon commander in Maret's battalion, brought this ammunition to the Lehi men. 69 Some Lehi men have related that Maret met with Dror and Barzilay on April 8 toward evening, in his home in the Beit Ha Kerem neighborhood. Barzilay tells about this meeting: "In Shaltiel's name, Maret asked that we attack (Deir Yassin) on Friday, April 9, at dawn, in order to aid re-occupation of Castel. We asked him for a vehicle, ammunition and food, and he agreed to our request immediately. We brought the request to attack at dawn to the decision of Zatler and Raanan. 70 Zatler: "There were many extremely religious men in Lehi, and I tried very hard not to work on the Sabbath. An attack on Friday morning was liable to put us into operational action on the Sabbath, but after I received Shaltiel's decisive request from Dror, I agreed to attack on Friday at dawn." 71 Moshe Idelstein related that on April 8 in the afternoon in the "Allenby" café in Jerusalem, one of the men of the headquarters of the fourth battalion of Palmach requested to coordinate the attack on Deir Yassin with the Palmach attack on Castel and with the traveling of the first "Nachshon Convoy" from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. Idelstein brought this request to Zatler, and "at night I traveled with one of the Palmach convoy escorts, along the convoy that had parked on the highway in Beit Ha Kerem, and we discussed final coordination measures." 72 Dror and Zelibansky reported, as they testified, to Maret, that Zatler agreed to coordinate the Deir Yassin attack with the Haganah attack on Castel and with the traveling of the convoy. According to Zelibansky, Maret told them, before they parted from him: "do this and succeed." 73 According to these testimonies it is possible to surmise that Yigal Yadin's counter-attack plan in the Jerusalem district included, together with the campaign for Castel and opening the road to the low land district, was also the Etzel and Lehi attack on Deir Yassin. Four days after the attack, a staff member of the American Consulate, Thomas Wasson wrote to the American Secretary of State, George Marshall, that it was tied to the battle being conducted now between the Arabs and the Jews over the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem." 74 The data above refute the claims of Meir Payil, Yitzhak Levy and others, and accepted by most of the researchers into the narrative of Deir Yassin for 59 years, that the men of Etzel and Lehi attacked the village without approval of the institutional authorities, and against the military interest of the Jews at that time. It has been brought to light beyond a doubt that Shaltiel reported at least to David Ben Gurion about the approaching attack, and received his approval, since for this reason Ben Gurion himself appointed Shaltiel commander of Jerusalem. In an interview I held with Shaltiel he confirmed that every step he made he coordinated with Ben Gurion. 75 "Unity In Fighting" Preparations for the action of Etzel and Lehi and coordination in the field with men of Haganah On the night before April 9, men of Etzel and Lehi patrolled in the area of Deir Yassin and reached its entrance. According to Yehoshua Gorodenchik, this patrol, which was under the command of Ben Tzion Cohen and with the participation of commanders from the Etzel force that was about to attack Deir Yassin, was coordinated with men of Haganah: "We visited their positions close to Deir Yassin, and one of them escorted us to the village." In a meeting of the commanders after the patrol, Raanan (according to the testimony of Gorodenchik) said that "the villaged seemed quite but it was not so. The Arabs had opened a logistical road from Ein Kerem to Tzova and to Castel. Deir Yassin and the Sharapa hill are controlling the defenses over this road. Therefore there is no chance to solve the problem of the road to Jerusalem without occupying Deir Yassin." 76 On 7 April, the men of Lehi patrolled in the area of Givat Shaul, met with members of Haganah that were stationed in position across from Deir Yassin and established a password with them "we will strike the enemy." Men of the position reported to their commanders that Lehi men had patrolled in the direction of Deir Yassin and that "we could not refuse, because we did not have the force to prevent them." 77 On April 8 the Etzel force trained in fighting in the built up area of abandoned Sheikh Bader. Commanders that had passed the course in fieldcraft and commanding the unit in battle (in Shoni near Binyamina), instructed the men and ordered them to throw grenades into every house and fire bursts in every room before entering them. 78 From the parking lot on Turim Street men of Lehi "confiscated" an armored truck of the Ala taxi company, that was in use by Haganah (the director of the intelligence department of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem, Golda Meir, traveled more than once in this truck), and rented a loudspeaker from the electrical appliance store of Peretz Epstein. They paid six and a quarter Palestinian lirot for it. 79 A man from the Etzel weapons unit, Yosef Avni (Abu-Gilda) brought weapons and ammunition from the store houses that were in the Zichron Yosef, Nahlat Tzion, and Mea Shearim neighborhoods. The commanders received pistols, and their soldiers received sixty nine rifles, Stens, and machine guns. Michael Harif, the Etzel weapons unit commander in Jerusalem, has related that many of the soldiers went out to battle without weapons and intended to take weapons from their comrades that were struck down, or from the Arabs. 80 Reuven (Romek) Greenberg, from the Lehi intelligence unit obtained for free a blue and white flag from the Schwartz department store, and his comrades took the flag staff from the British flag that was flying over "Censor House" in the center of the city, for the purpose of waving the Zionist flag over the house of the Mukhtar in Deir Yassin, after occupation of the village. 81 On April 8, in the evening, sixty Lehi men gathered in Sheikh Bader and seventy two Etzel men gathered in the Ein Kerem neighborhood. Each squad received thirty rifles and three Stens. One of the three Bren machine guns was given to the Lehi force, one to the Etzel force and one to the armored truck with the loudspeaker. The stretcher men received clubs. Every rifle man received forty bullets, everyone with a Sten, a hundred bullets, and each soldier two grenades. There was no communications equipment. The password was "Unity In Fighting", and the zero hour was fixed (in coordination with Zalman Maret) at 5:00 AM. 82 Yona Feitelson, a man from the intelligence service, came to Givat Shaul, informed the Haganah guards that forces of Etzel and Lehi are going to attack Deir Yassin, and ordered them to report to the district command about everything that happens. 83 Around midnight, the Lehi men were transported from Sheikh Bader to Givat Shaul and located themselves at the Haganah position, that was located in a shelter next to the beer factory. Pithiya Zelibanski told the area commander, Yonah Ben Sasson, that the attack was coordinated with Shaltiel; Ben Sasson phoned the district commander in order to ask what to do. He did not find a senior commander there and on his own decided not to aid and not to interfere with the Etzel men. The inhabitants of Deir Yassin, who sensed the preparations, and as it seems, received a warning about the operation from the head of the Haganah intelligence service in Jerusalem, Yitzhak Levy, sought to meet with Ovadia, a man of the intelligence service, and gave him the agreed signal for this. Ben Sasson did not permit Ovadia to meet with the village's representatives, because he was concerned that the people from the village would kidnap the liaison man and hold him hostage. 84 The Operation The Etzel force (commanded by Ben Tzion Cohen) and deputy commanders Yehuda Lapidot and Michael Harif) reached Beit Ha Kerem at midnight, and at 1:00 AM went out by foot in the direction of Deir Yassin. Lapidot has related that on the way he met the force of Haganah guards. "We told them that we are going to attack Deir Yassin, and they gave us their blessings "May you be successful." At 4:15 AM the force parked near the village, and Yehuda Treibish's (Menashe) squad located itself near Sharapa Hill (Mt. Herzl), that overlooked south east over Deir Yassin, and on the road to it from Ein Kerem. 85 At the same time the Lehi force, commanded by Zelibanski, advanced to the village from Givat Shaul through a grape vineyard. Shimon Monita has related: "David Efrati and I led the column. We encountered Arabs who were going to work, and we fired at them. We did not hit them, and they disappeared. We reached the northern entrance to the village." Lehi men waited for the signal that the Etzel men would give: a burst of tracer bullets, and afterward a call on the loudspeaker for the inhabitants of the village to surrender. 86 Ben Tzion Cohen: "Arab guards were wandering around among the houses of the village and speaking with each other. At 4:25 AM by mistake one of us dislodged some rocks, and the sound of walking was heard. One of the Arab guards turned to his comrade and said: 'Ya Muhammad!' and our squad commander erred and thought these are Lehi men, and that one of them said the beginning of the password "achdut." He replied, 'lohemet'. The Arab guards shouted: 'Muhammad a Jew!' I had no alternative, and at 4:30 AM before the planned time, I ordered the squad commander, Yehuda Segel, to fire a burst of tracer bullets from the machine gun, and the attack began." 87 Michael Harif: "My platoon stormed forward and passed by the first row of houses. I was among the first that entered the village. There were a few more fellows with me. Each one encouraged the others to advance. On the slope of the street I saw a man in khaki clothes run forward. I thought that he was one of ours, I ran after him and I told him, 'advance to that house'. Suddenly he turned, aimed his rifle at me and fired. This was an Iraqi soldier. I was wounded in the leg. I could not continue to command my platoon. I shouted that I am wounded and I turned myself around, hopping on one leg. I entered a courtyard in an area that we had already occupied and I sat there." 88 The armored truck with the loudspeaker left Givat Shaul for Deir Yassin a few minutes before 5:00 AM, as planned, and by then the battle was already under way (as mentioned because of the mistake of the Etzel men). Five Etzel men and five Lehi men were aboard the armored truck. They reached a trench (that the patrol had not noticed there beforehand) and this stopped.them. Under fire, some of them got out of the armored truck, and they filled the trench with their steel helmets and rocks. Yosef Yagen (a Lehi man) was killed on the spot and others were wounded. Ezra Yachin has related: "After we filled the trench we continued moving. We passed by two road blocks and we stopped before a third road block, a distance of thirty meters from the village. One of us called to the inhabitants on the loudspeaker in Arabic to lay down their weapons and flee. I don't know if they heard, and I know that these calls had no influence. We got out of the armored truck and joined the battle." 89 In the light of day the Etzel soldiers advanced up the slope of the hill, under fire that was directed at them from the porches and positions in the east of the village, from the ridges that overlooked it, and also, according to research, from a Haganah machine gun that was located on Mt. Herzl. Some of them tried to take control of the houses from which there was gunfire. In opposition to information they had before the attack, the doors of the houses were not of wood but of iron, and they could not break them down by pushing and kicking. Therefore, they attached explosives to them and blew them up. People inhabiting the houses were wounded or killed. In an announcement of the Mandatory Government that was published in the newspapers that morning it stated: "Jews have occupied part of the Arab village Deir Yassin. Five houses of the village were blown up and some Arabs were killed." 90 In the afternoon, the British broadcast the same announcement on the radio. 91 Etzel soldiers advanced to the target without reciprocal cover and without skipping over, and did not exploit ground creases or dormant areas. Some of them were struck immediately. Yehuda Banai has related: "At a distance of five meters from the village strong fire was opened against us. We received an order to withdraw, and then I was hit by a bullet. I was down for around a half hour until I was evacuated." 92 Moshe Nahum Mizrahi has related that he heard a shout: "Andak" (Stop) ! And so I got down. One bullet was fired against us. We advanced, and then a burst was fired against us from an automatic weapon. Storming forward began. The Arabs had positions inside houses and on the roofs. We heard bursts of gunfire…Arabs were moving between the positions. We heard rustling and we saw a group of seven soldiers in khaki dress on whose heads were keffiyehs, with white and red spots – soldiers from the gangs. We fired at them and they spread out, and so they fired against us from the windows and we were afraid to move. I was wounded. Every moment seemed to me an hour. When we gathered I saw a mass of wounded, and the commander of the operation was also wounded in the leg. I saw an Arab child weeping, and I gave him to an Arab woman." 93 Yehoshua Sari: "We passed an area of a building in which there was no opposition, and there were some women and children there. I told them in Arabic to go inside the house. When we were on the path, between two rows of buildings, a man with a British steel helmet, blue battle dress, and khaki pants approached us, a rifle in his hand. He came running. We called to him: 'password' and he did not answer. We shot at him and he disappeared. We advanced and strong fire was opened from one of the houses. We were stopped behind a fence. We needed to withdraw some meters and I got a bullet in the left shoulder. I was sent to one of the corners. There I received first aid." 94 The Lehi force penetrated the village from the north, and there the defenders of the village did not have topographic advantage. Pithiya Zelibanski: "Every squad advanced to its target. We blew open the doors (of the houses) with zhelnite, we threw grenades into the houses and sprayed them with gunfire. Consequently, many Arabs were struck during the battle. In one house we found alive a Muslim Yugoslav officer and a soldier who had deserted from the Legion. We identified them from their documents, and we eliminated them." 95 Shimon Monita: "A sniper, who looked over on the whole area from the Mukhtar's house, was harassing us. Every one of his shots, from a distance of five hundred meters, hit the target. We entered the houses to hide from the sniping. Dror was hit in the leg. I dragged him to a place of cover. The squad commander Amos Kinan, was hit by a bullet that one of our men fired. The village's guards fired weakly. The Sten guns that we received from Etzel did not work. The squad commander, David Shnives (Zamor) found cover behind a stack of rocks and prepared the Sten guns for operation during the battle. Most of the soldiers had not received training in this kind of fighting. Some threw grenades without pulling the pin." 96 Reuven Greenberg: "The Arabs fought like lions and we noted precise sniping. Women came out of the houses under fire, gathered the weapons that fell from the hands of the Arab soldiers that were struck, and brought them to the interior positions." 97 Yehoshua Zatler: "The forces moved quickly into the village. From every house and from every window gunfire was directed against us, and we threw grenades. The inhabitants had 'Sten' guns, rifles and pistols. Our men stormed forward from house to house, while throwing inside explosive devices. We did not consider how many people were located in each house. Even though there was an explicit order, not to harm women and children, it was impossible for us to execute it on account of the circumstances. When we stormed forward against the houses, gunfire was directed against us. We thought: either them – or us. For us it was a question of life: if he will live – I will die! At the moment the inhabitants of Deir Yassin decided to fight, they decided their own fate. "In one place – the Mukhtar's house – we encountered difficult opposition. This was a house that overlooked the territory. It was difficult to silence the Arabs that were in that stronghold." 98 The squad of Etzel members commanded by Yehuda Treibish advanced to the Sharapa Ridge. Armed Arabs that had fled from Deir Yassin also reached the ridge. Michael Harif was wounded and down in one of the village's courtyards, in which was a Bren machine gun. He has related: "I told Siegel (the machine gunner), 'Look, you can fire at them there, and he fired and we saw that they fled'. In the exchanges of fire on Sharapa Ephraim Yakobi was killed, and two men of Treibish's squad were wounded. The ammunition of the squad's men was exhausted, and they withdrew from the ridge." 99 Devora Yakobi (no relationship to Ephraim Yakobi, who was killed on the Sharapa Ridge), who lived then in the Yafeh Nof neighborhood, has related: "I stood in a fold in the ground, and I watched. I saw two men fleeing on the Sharapa incline. They fell and did not get up. I took a stretcher and blankets and a first aid bag, that were with me because of my function in Haganah, and I advanced toward them. More people from the neighborhood came there. They carried the wounded to the highway, and evacuated them to hospital. The Etzel commander shook my hand." 100 Ben Tzion Cohen was wounded at 6:00 AM (he was evacuated only at 11:30 AM) Other Etzel men advanced under fire and met in the center of the village with Lehi men. Most of the Etzel men remained in houses at the entrance of the village. At 9:00 AM, a runner came from the village to the command post of Mordechai Raanan, in Givat Shaul, and reported: "Dozens have been struck and the force is not adapted to advance. Cohen is wounded and requests orders." Raanan has related: "Gal and I went to the village, under sniper fire. We reached the concentration of wounded, behind a terrace, at the entrance of the village. Cohen told us: 'Decide. In my view we don't have a chance to take the village. We need to withdraw'. There was an air of gloom." Raanan returned from Deir Yassin to Givat Shaul and asked Zatler for explosives. The bombs were brought from the city after an hour and a half. Gal and his soldiers blew up house after house, and the houses collapsed on their residents. 101 While in battle from house to house the attacking force pushed the enemy toward the Mukhtar's house, as was written in a report that the intelligence officer of the Etzioni brigade gave to David Shaltiel some days later. 102 Mordechai Raanan: "At 11:00 AM we resumed the operation. We blew up the first house. Every quarter hour, approximately, we blew up another house. We had no idea who was in the houses. We related to every house as to a reinforced position. By this method we reached a house near which 'Yiftach' was positioned. …Not far away a young soldier had taken position with a Bren machine gun. We warned the inhabitants of the house that we are about to blow it up, and they, who had seen what happened to the other house dwellers, came toward us with hands raised. There were nine people there, including a woman and a child. The fellow that held the Bren gun suddenly pressed the trigger and squeezed it. A burst of bullets struck the group of Arabs. 'This is for Yiftach, for Yiftach! the boy shouted and fired. 'What have you done?' we shouted at him. 'One of them held a rifle and he tired to fire', he replied. Other soldiers confirmed afterward that indeed one of the Arabs was about to fire… "…After we blew up a dozen houses, the inhabitants of the village that were not struck, came out of their houses. Their hands were raised. We gathered them together and we told them: you can choose – either to go to Ein Kerem, or we are transporting you to the Mandelbaum Gate. Hundreds preferred to go to Ein Kerem and many others preferred to travel to Mandelbaum Gate. Those we transported in four trucks to the Gate." 103 If You Don't Help, We Are Lost Most of the Jewish wounded in the battle over Deir Yassin were Etzel men. The lightly wounded walked to Givat Shaul bent over and behind shelter. Some of the badly wounded were carried by their comrades. Yehuda Siegel (Yiftach) was wounded in his stomach and asked Lapidot to shoot him. "I laid him down on a door and two men carried him", Lapidot has related. "The two door carriers were wounded, and I sent men to bring back the three of them." 104 At 7:00 AM a wounded man reached Givat Shaul and shouted: "why don't you evacuate the wounded!!" The Haganah commanders set up a sort of headquarters in Givat Shaul, in order to follow what was happening in Deir Yassin. Zalman Maret remained in this headquarters during all the hours of the battle. The senior Haganah commanders in the district, David Shaltiel, Tzion Eldad, Yeshurun Shiff, and Shlomo Havilav, came to Givat Shaul a number of times that day, and liaison officers mediated between them and Yehoshua Zatler and Mordechai Raanan. Shaltiel has said in his testimony: "I reached Givat Shaul before noon. I saw Yehoshua Zatler. They asked that we help them take out the wounded." Yitzhak Levy has written that Zalman Maret "stayed with Shaltiel in Givat Shaul at the time of the operation." Yehoshua Zatler: "Dror was in contact with Zalman Maret all the time." Mordechai Gihon, who was also in Givat Shaul, has related that Maret was there during all the hours of the attack. 105 The attackers who were in distress did ask for aid, and Maret agreed to their request. Yonah Feitelson: "I was in our headquarters on watch that night. The Jewish policemen in Givat Shaul asked what to do, the attackers are stuck, and they were given an order to aid them." 106 The officer on watch in Shatiel's command center wrote in his operations diary, close to 6:00 AM: "Deir Yassin has been occupied by the dissidents in a joint operation of Etzel and Lehi. From the direction of Givat Shaul Lehi succeeded in its operation. Etzel encountered difficulties. They are reporting about pronounced resistance. Killed and wounded among the attackers." 107 Here is the testimony of Nahum Gross, a man from the "Forman" unit of the Palmach: "Early in the morning Ivri came to Shenler, he said that Etzel has made an operation to occupy Deir Yassin, they are worn down and tired and are requesting aid to prevent a counter-attack and so that they may rest. Our view was that the village is endangering the transportation to Jerusalem and one should prevent its re-occupation by the Arabs. There were those who said that it is a village of rioters. It was natural in our view to aid the occupation of the village." 108 One of the men who traveled from Shenler's camp to Deir Yassin, has related: "Early in the morning we received an order to go to Deir Yassin with a two inch mortar. We ordered a taxi from the Nesher company and we traveled there, four comrades, to the Jewish Agency building. We took a mortar and we took Yerushalmi as our guide. A man from Lehi waited for us at the quarry. we heard the loudspeaker that called on the inhabitants of the village to cease fire. The man indicated to us the area of the gunfire in the village and indicated the Mukhtar's house. The gunfire was silenced in the area that we fired into, and then an envoy came from Shaltiel and ordered us to return to Shenler camp immediately. The man from Lehi did not involve himself. Moshe Idelstein has related that only three of the reinforcements from Palmach returned to Shenler camp, and the fourth, Ivri Elad, stayed in Givat Shaul. 109 Zalman Maret telephoned the Red Magen Adom first aid station. An ambulance came to the area of the battle and parked between Givat Shaul and Deir Yassin. The attackers took beds out of the houses, laid the wounded down on them, and ordered the inhabitants of the village, including women and elderly, to carry the beds to the ambulance and cover them. They believed that the Arabs would not shoot their own people. Yehoshua Gorodenchik, who commanded the transfer of the wounded, has related that the Arab machine gunners and snipers continued to shoot and struck many of the Arabs carrying the stretchers. At 8:00 AM the ambulance evacuated the wounded to a hospital in the city, and the other wounded waited a long time until it returned. Meir Zaroa, commander of the "Beit Horin" battalion of the "Etzioni" brigade was sitting in the district command center when an Etzel envoy came from Givat Shaul. "If you don't assist, we are lost" the envoy said. In a telephone conversation Shaltiel asked Yosef Tabenkin to send three armored cars from Kiryat Anavim to Deir Yassin to evacuate the wounded. Later he testified: "I was forced to order a Palmach force to aid them, to rescue them." Tabenkin sent the armored cars and they evacuated most of the badly wounded. Rina Barzilay, the woman who commanded the unit of Etzel for rescuing wounded, and her deputy, Devora Simhon, also traveled in a Palmach armored car. While evacuating the wounded, Simhon was struck. Later Tzion Eldad testified: "Without the aid from Palmach Etzel would not have been able to rescue the wounded, and we could not have continued with the operation." Two days after the attack Shaltiel explained in a telegram to Yisrael Galili: "They encountered complications…and they begged us to rescue the wounded. We were forced to help them." Later Zalman Maret related: "The Lehi commander begged Shaltiel…Shaltiel lashed back at him, why did you go to Deir Yassin, and he said that they did this to acquire praise." 110 Palmach Also Fought There Around 7:00 AM, the defenders of Givat Shaul were informed that Arab reinforcements from Ein Kerem and Malha were advancing in the direction of Deir Yassin. Mordechai Gihon went up to the Sharapa ridge. There were no people on the ridge. Gihon: "The Arabs that struck the Etzel men had gone away, it seemed. We saw Arabs fleeing from Deir Yassin, and we got the impression that from the south a force was organizing itself to reinforce the attacked village. We fired bursts from the Spandau machine gun over the road. We struck Arabs that fled from Deir Yassin and we blocked their way. We prevented the advance of the reinforcements, and it is possible that we also struck Etzel men that entered the area of our firing. At 8:30 AM approximately, we returned to Givat Shaul." The Haganah men continued to fire in the same direction from the south west neighborhoods of Jerusalem, and it seems that this also struck Etzel men from behind, without their being aware of that, until the writing of these lines 59 years later. 112 While in battle, when the ammunition of the Etzel and Lehi soldiers ran out, the commander of Givat Shaul, Haganah man Yona Ben Sasson, gave them a little ammunition. In addition, they took without permission a Louis machine gun that was stationed in the neighborhood (after some days Shaltiel discharged Ben Sasson from his post because of what he did). 113 Lapidot: "An ammunition store house for British rifles that we found in the village, saved the situation. We filled the cartridges for the Bren gun, distributed weapons to the fellows and we continued to fight." In one of the houses Yehoshua Gorodenchik found twenty cartages with bullets for the Bren machine gun. 114 Lehi men found in the village bullets for Czech rifles, that did not fit their own rifles. David Gotleib, Moshe Barzilay and Moshe Idelstein traveled to Shneller camp and offered the convoy escorts a deal: six thousand Czech bullets in return for three thousand British bullets. The commander, Yakov Weg, was not then in the camp (he was commanding the unit that guarded the highway near Colonia). His deputy, Moshe Eren, refused to make a decision on this sensitive matter and phoned Weg. Here is a part of the report that Yakov Weg wrote: "I am informed about Deir Yassin and about their desperate situation, that we are unable to take out their wounded. They have requested weapons, cover and men, since they do not have professionals. I asked permission of the district commander (Shaltiel) through the battalion's intelligence officer. The answer was, it is incumbent on you to go out but only provide cover for removing the wounded." Weg returned to Shneller camp and gave three thousand bullets to Zatler's envoys. They asked him also for a machine gun and mortar. "I will not give weapons", Weg told them, "but I will aid you in rescuing the wounded, if I will receive approval." Approval was given. Later Moshe Eren testified: "Shaltiel approved to Yaki (Weg) by telephone to go out with a squad to Deir Yassin." At noon fifteen convoy escort soldiers, men of Palmach, went to Deir Yassin, in two armored cars and a pick up truck, with two 52 mm mortars and three machine guns. Yakov Weg: "I met with the commanders of the two organizations and I asked for a map. I demanded a precise explanation…They explained that they have no communications equipment, only runners…They noted a certain house in the west of the village…There were (in the village) twenty five men with two machine guns and rifles, who were held down by snipers (the snipers fired from the house the Etzel and Lehi commanderss noted to Yakov Weg). There wasn't a commander among them, and the men were not listening to orders, because they belonged to different organizations. I fired three shells at the north wing of the house. After the shelling the firing stopped. I gave a report to the district commander and I received an order to be prepared to provide cover for removing the wounded or for a withdrawal, and not to get involved in any battle operation." Eren: "There was a consultation. It emerged that the attackers and the Arabs are mixed up with each other in the village and it was impossible to use mortars and machine guns without endangering the Etzel and Lehi men. In order to rescue the wounded it was incumbent on us to eliminate the sources of gunfire. Yaki decided to go into the village with a force, and I also thought that this is the method to undertake the mission." Two Palmach squads, commanded by Weg and Eren, entered Deir Yassin. 115 One of the Palmach men, Gideon Sarig, remained at Lehi headquarters in Givat Shaul, in order to supervise the armored cars. "There was a United Press photographer there, and an excited Jewish mob", Sarig has related. "Women were filling the rifle and machine gun cartridges with bullets that were kept in glass jars." 116 Palmach member Kalman Rosenblatt, who entered Deir Yassin with his comrades has related: "With six men I passed from house to house. We threw grenades into the houses before we entered them. We met Etzel and Lehi men in the middle of the village. Some of them joined us and others said, 'until now we have fought, now you fight'. There were killed in the houses. The dissidents did not fight." 117 David Gotleib (a Lehi man): "At 1:00 PM the Palmach men achieved what we had not succeeded in achieving in some hours. They had good weapons, and they were trained for battle and they acted quickly and efficiently." 118 Moshe Eren: "There was dreadful gunfire inside the village. The wounded were close to the gunfire. We tried to approach them and then a runner came, in Shaltiel's name, and commanded us to leave the village immediately. We took some wounded with us and we returned to Givat Shaul. We did not reach the Mukhtar's house." 119 The convoy escort soldiers that returned to Shneller camp brought booty with them. Hadassah Avigdori had taken a vacation that weekend and was staying at her parents' home. "When I returned to the camp that morning, most of the girls were still sleeping", Avigdori wrote in her diary on 11 April, "and I saw L. standing and adorning herself with a woven Arab peasant dress. And when I asked her where this dress came from, one of the girls answered, all covered in a blanket, including her head, in a weak voice, that L. had brought this dress from Deir Yassin…They had brought all kinds of finds and articles from there, and the girls even asked me, ' didn't you hear the chickens cackling in the courtyard?' Shock and shame and anger and pain struck me. I got up and returned home." 120 On the day of the battle Etzel and Lehi commanders related to journalists that Palmach units took part in the battle over Deir Yassin. The day after Haganah commanders in Tel Aviv told the same journalists that Palmach forces had not taken part in this battle. a Four days after the battle the newspaper "Al Ha Mishmar" reported that Haganah dissociates itself from the propaganda of the terrorist organizations, whereby Palmach units took part in the occupation of Deir Yassin. 121 After the Palmach soldiers left Deir Yassin the Etzel and Lehi men tried to take control of the Mukhtar's house and did not succeed. They took control of it the next day (10 April) and flew a flag on its roof. 122 The Journey Of The Captives In a short article that was published in the Jerusalem magazine "Problems Of The Time" it states: "They organized a victory march of captives, including women and children, in the approaches to the city, in open cars, while their hands are raised and pistols and sub-machine guns and also machine guns are pointed at their chests. The decisive majority of the Jewish community has related to this scene with contempt and scorn. Haganah put an end to it, and took pains to transfer the victims to an Arab area:" 123 In 1972 Gabriel Stern wrote in the newspaper "Al Ha Mishmar": "On that day, in April 1948, before my position on Nevi'im Street, I watched while they led the ones saved from the massacre on a revolting victory march." 124 Did he indeed? As mentioned, many of Deir Yassin's residents fled. On the day of the battle, seven hundred of them reached Ein Kerem and other villages south of Jerusalem. Their fleeing was accompanied by the gunfire that was fired on the road from Mordechai Gihon's machine gun and the machine guns of Haganah men from the south western neighborhoods. Many of those that fled were struck by this gunfire, and many others did not dare to flee on account of it. a According to the testimony of Mordechai Raanan, during the battle the inhabitants that came out of their houses were centralized and according to their choice either they went to Ein Kerem or were transported in four trucks to the Mandelbaum Gate. Before noon on April 9, only a few men remained in Deir Yassin. Some of those that were not killed and did not flee, went up to the hills near the village and from them fired on the attackers. Some women members of Etzel and Lehi gathered the inhabitants that remained in the village. Yaffa Badian has related: "We entered the houses with weapons in hand and we led them to the gathering place. There the men put them on trucks and sent them to distant places." 125 At 9:30 AM Lehi men put forty elderly, women, and children on two trucks, and they sent them to the Lehi base in the Sheikh Jarrach neighborhood. Sarah Pelai has related: "There were no young men among them. There were two people on the base, Amikam and I. All the others were in Deir Yassin and Givat Shaul. We put them (the forty elderly, women and children) in a large store house and we locked it. Amikam cocked the sub-machinegun so that they will know that we have force and not to make mischief. They were shocked and obedient and they asked for water. We gave them barrels of water and cold preserved meat. The women wailed. Toward evening Aryeh Carmel came with other men, we put them on trucks and transported them to east Jerusalem." 126 It states in the intelligence service report to Shaltiel on April 12, that "some of the women and children that were taken captive by Lehi, and were moved to Sheikh Bader. Among the captives a young mother and baby. The guards of the camp killed the baby in the mother's eyes, and after she fainted, they also murdered her," Sarah Pelai completely rejects that this happened: "absolutely not!" Yehoshua Zatler has said: "This was not a matter of fact intelligence report, but a fabricated report. Certain figures in Haganah and the left-wing parties decided to make a political, national and cultural affair out of the occupation of Deir Yassin." 127 Research confirms this claim as will further become clear to the reader. From 2:00 PM traveling in rounds, the trucks transported the inhabitants of Deir Yassin to east Jerusalem, and passed into Mea Shearim. Moshe Barzilay from Lehi and Joel Kimhi from Etzel commanded the evacuation. In later testimony, Barzilay comments that it was a humane operation. Natan Yellin-Mor has written that the last truck passed through Mea Shearim after the start of Shabbat, and that the residents of the neighborhood cursed the travelers and spit on them not because they were Arabs, but because of the desecration of Shabbat. Shimon Monita has said: "The residents of Jerusalem were depressed then, and the trucks with the Arabs traveled on the main streets and the Mahane Yehuda market to raise morale. The objective was achieved and morale went up." 128 Some days later Shaltiel wrote in an internal document: "The passage of the captives through the Jewish population aroused enthusiasm." 129 "More than enthusiasm", says Ezra Yakin, "These were expressions of anger of the early Jewish settlement that had absorbed many losses from Arab attacks." 130 I Didn't See Signs Of Abusive Treatment On the afternoon of April 9 an Arab man, disguised as a woman, was brought to the Lehi command center at Givat Shaul and one of those present shot him in the head. Gideon Sarig, who was a witness to this incident, has related that some Jewish civilians threw the body of the murdered man into a bonfire. Local and foreign journalists, Haganah commanders, and many Jewish residents of the neighborhood that came there saw this act. 131 Bruria Hoffman, a Jerusalem resident, has testified: "Rumors came that there was abuse in Deir Yassin, they cut off ears." 132 Shlomo Sofer, who served as a police officer, phoned Moshe Barzilay in Givat Shaul: "There are rumors that there was a massacre in Deir Yassin." 133 Hadassah Avigdori wrote in her diary two days later: "Rumors are coming all the time about blind savagery and thirst for blood, murders of peaceful women, children and the elderly, abuse of captives and killed. Abuse of human beings." 134 Mordechai Gihon has related with respect to his entering the village: "Maret told me: 'Take a platoon, advance to Deir Yassin and enforce order there. Here the comrades are saying that they are making a massacre there. Confirm they are not making an Exodus. If they have done this, we want a clean territory. That they will not leave behind corpses, that they will bury them. That they will behave like cultured soldiers'. I surmise that it was decided to place this mission on me because there was concern that the dissidents will resist and there will be exchanges of fire Therefore it was best that the mission commander will be someone neutral, loyal to Haganah. But someone without a prior account with the dissidents and who is not known as hostile to them. I understood that it was forbidden to make relations with them even more severe. "Before we reached the village, we saw men dragging corpses to the quarry east of Deir Yassin. We entered the village at 3:00 PM. Gunfire was heard. They stopped me at the entrance. I identified myself. I said that my mission is to examine the situation in the village, and I demanded that they let me enter. They said: 'You will not enter', and if you try, we will open fire at you'. I said that I will enter by force. They had a consultation, and they proposed that I will enter alone, without my men. I agreed, and the men of the platoon stayed outside the village. Afterward spirits cooled, and they let some of my men enter. "There were dozens of corpses in the village. The dissidents removed them from the roads. I told them not to throw the corpses into pits and trenches, because this is the first place they will check. From time to time I sent a runner to Givat Shaul, to report on my findings to Shaltiel and the men of his headquarters. I was shocked at the sight of some of the dissidents who sat and ate heartily beside the corpses. I did not see signs of abuse and I did not see acts of murder. At the time I was in the village I did not see any commander or intelligence man from Haganah." a "Toward evening I received an order, through a runner, to return to Givat Shaul. I reported orally to Maret, and he asked me to prepare a written report. The next day I gave him the report. I was then after my British army service in Europe and after a meeting with Shoah survivors in the camps. I was prepared to accept anything about the Germans, but I was innocent about our wars and soldiers. My visit in Deir Yassin was for me an ethical shock. Before I had not seen with my own eyes so many corpses. Today I know that other things like these were done." 135 Mordechai Raanan: "At 2:30 PM Yeshurun Shiff came to me and said that Shaltiel and Eldad wanted to speak with me. I went with him from Deir Yassin to Givat Shaul. I told Shaltiel: 'What's the matter? We have finished. The village is occupied – no Arabs there. We evacuated all the Arabs that were not killed. Take the village into your hands, as is written in your letter'. Shaltiel said: 'What does this mean?! You will hold the village'! "I told him: 'You will not get us stuck in the village, we are soldiers that fight and break through, and not holders of positions, and you will not neutralize us. We are concerned that the British Air Force will come and attack us. There is a large concentration here of Etzel and Lehi men. And he said: 'it is of no account!' I told him: 'Of no account?' Goodbye we are leaving'. So he said to Shiff and Eldad: ' go into the village with Raanan and see what sort of force is needed to hold it'. The three of us patrolled the village. We reached the destroyed houses. Shiff approached the ruins, returned and said: 'just dreadful, a horror. There are squashed corpses there. There were pieces of bodies and all these things… This happens when a house is blown up upon its inhabitants. I entered and indeed I saw a very shocking scene. All right, this happens. In war things like these happen. We didn't know that they are holding women and children, mothers,civilians, in houses that had been turned into strongholds. This was the village's line of schools. On the roofs were reinforced positions. We returned to Givat Shaul and Eldad told Shaltiel, without commenting at all on the blown up houses: 'In my view a company of youth battalions will hold the village. In my view there is no danger of a counter-attack'. "We almost concluded, and then Shiff said to Shaltiel: 'You are sending members of the youth battalions? It is impossible to send youth battalions, who will see the horrors of the remains of corpses'. The stress in Shiff's statement was not on the remains of corpses, but on the difficulty of the young youth battalions to absorb the sight. Shaltiel said: 'if you don't clean it up, there will be ta ta ta (i.e. gunfire), and Shiff tried to convince me: "Raanan, come let's make an effort, let's try to clean it up'. "I returned to the village and I told Lapidot: 'We will see if it is possible to clean this up'. Our comrades were broken through dealing with this matter. They lifted blocks of cement and Jerusalem stone to remove the remains of the corpses. This was terrible. They removed some remains out of the buildings, to some open space, to a place somewhat level, and they sat down. Lapidot told me: 'It is absurd to ask them to do this. I cannot do this. We are finished'. I said: 'We are finished, finished'. The corpses remained in the area, and I returned to Givat Shaul. Shaltiel and his headquarters men were already not there. Toward evening I returned to Jerusalem and I told Shaltiel that we will turn over the village tomorrow morning. He asked that we hold the village at least until Sunday." 136 In an announcement to the press that Raanan composed that day (the newspapers received it at 7:00 PM) it stated: "The village of Deir Yassin is conquered. The battle was from house to house. We took captives. We have promised to hold the village for forty eight hours and afterward we will hand it over to Haganah." Testimonies Of Jacques De Renier, Head of The Red Cross Delegation, And Dr. Alfred Engel. A delegation from the International Red Cross was in Palestine as of the beginning of April. The head of the delegation, Jacques de Renier, wrote in his memoirs that Arabs informed him by telephone that the inhabitants of Deir Yassin were massacred, and they asked him to travel to this village. Jewish Agency and Haganah staff told him that they did not know about a massacre, and that the village was under the control of Etzel and it is impossible to enter it. "They advised me not to get involved, because if I go there, it is liable to mean the end of my mission. They dissociated themselves in advance from anything that is liable to happen to me if I insist. I replied that I will fulfill my obligations and that I view the Jewish Agency directly responsible for my wellbeing and my freedom of action, because it is responsible for all the territories in Jewish hands." De Renier employed personal contacts and entered Deir Yassin on the morning of 11 April – two days after the battle. A German speaking Jew accompanied him on his tour of the village. 137 This was Lehi intelligence man Moshe Barzilay. Here is Barzilay's story: "We agreed that De Renier would tour the village, after a Jewish/British police officer, Shlomo Sofer, informed us that there are rumors of a massacre in the village, and that the Red Cross representative wanted to visit. We hoped that with the aid of De Renier we would refute the rumors." De Renier has related that he heard gunfire and met with "a young commander, polite and correct, and he had a strange spark in his eyes, cruel or cold. I explained my mission to this commander… I told him that I am not judging and I am not an arbitrator between the sides, and that I want to rescue the wounded that remain alive and to evacuate the dead." 138 Zelibanski: "I permitted De Renier to wander around the village with Barzilay and to examine the bodies." 139 De Renier: "According to them they ordered all the inhabitants on the loudspeaker to evacuate the houses and to surrender. The time to fulfill this demand was a quarter hour. Some of these unfortunates were taken captive, and after a short time they were released in the direction of the Arab lines. 'Those that did not execute the order received what was coming to them. No need to exaggerate. There are just a few killed, who we will bury after we finish the clean up. If we find additional bodies you are entitled to take them. There are no wounded.' These words froze my blood." De Renier received an ambulance and a truck from Red Magen Adom, and a physician, Dr. Alfred Engel, went with them to Deir Yassin. Here is Dr. Engel's story: "I was asked by telephone to go to some place, to check something with the Red Cross. They told me this was a dangerous mission, and they asked me to report what happened there. We entered the village easily. There were only dissidents there, and they were piling corpses on the trucks." De Renier: "The men of the unit that remained in the village were all young. Young men and men armed from top to toe, pistols, sub-machineguns, grenades and also large knives, stained with blood. A young and beautiful woman, with the eyes of a criminal, showed me a knife dripping blood…I entered a house. The first room was dark. Everything turned over. No one there. In one room I saw broken furniture, blankets and cold corpses. Here they made a 'clean up' with a sub-machinegun and afterward with grenades, and they concluded with knives. Also in the next room. When I was about to leave, I heard a sigh. I searched the whole place, I turned over corpses, and finally I found a cut off foot, still warm. This was a girl age 10, wounded but alive. I ordered them to pile the corpses from this house on the truck…Everywhere the same terrible vision. In total I found only two women alive, the girl and an old woman that hid behind a package of twigs." Dr. Engle: "In the houses there were killed, a total of a hundred men, women and children. This was terrible. I did not see signs of acts of abuse or rape. It was clear that they (the attackers) went from house to house and shot people from up close. I was a physician in the German army for five years, in the First World War, and did not see such a horrible scene." De Renier returned to Jerusalem with the girl and elderly woman that were saved from death. He reported to the Arab representatives about what he saw in Deir Yassin, and he asked them what to do with the corpses. Those with whom he spoke did not agree that he will bring them to the Old City, because they were concerned about the reaction of the inhabitants, and they asked him to "stay with the dead until they will be brought to respectful burial." Staff of the Jewish Agency told him: "We have no control over Etzel and Lehi. Afterward he wrote in his book: "They (the Jewish Agency staff) had done nothing to prevent certain individuals from committing indescribable crimes." He returned to Deir Yassin, and according to him, he persuaded the Etzel and Lehi commanders to bury the killed in a collective grave. 140 Barzilay: "Before he left he said to me: 'It is very hot here. If you don't do something, there will be an epidemic. Burn the corpses or bury them with lime'. We didn't have lime, therefore we decided to burn them." 141 Shimon Monita: "The Red Cross man told us that the Arabs don't want to accept the corpses, and that we must bury them in Deir Yassin. We had to take them off the trucks, after they were piled up for twenty-four hours. No one wanted to do this. I got up on a truck with a rag over my nose and mouth, I took three corpses off and could do no more. I could not bury or pour gasoline. They thought the corpses would burn, but it is impossible to burn corpses. In that open air it is impossible. Scorched corpses remained. That is the source of the stories about abuse." 142 Moshe Barzilay: "We poured three jerry cans of gasoline over thirty corpses on the main highway. After a half hour we understood that this is not working. Zatler gave a command to evacuate the scorched corpses from the main highway to beyond the fence. The men refused. Zatler pulled out a pistol. I told him: 'be a personal example'. Together we pulled on one corpse, and a hand fell off the body and remained by me. I vomited." 143 The Face Of War The base of the Jerusalem youth batallions was in the Sheikh Bader neighborhood, and it's nickname was Givat Ram (Rikuz Mifakdim – "concentration of commanders hill"). a The youth battalions commanders lived there and the cadets trained there and went out on operations. The base commander, Tzvi Ankori,b and the youth battalions brigade commander, Yehoshua Arieli c were students at Hebrew University. 144 On April 11, Pithiya Zelibanski and a number of Etzel and Lehi men came to Beit Ha Kerem, entered the command room of the "Machmash" battalion and demanded that Yeshurun Shiff fulfill Shaltiel's guarantee to send a unit of youth battalions to Deir Yassin. 145 Shaltiel ordered Arieli to send his cadets to the hills overlooking the village, in order to repel a possible attack from the direction of Ein Kerem. "Shaltiel told me not to conduct negotiations with the dissidents and not to take any orders from them", Arieli testified later. "He did not order me to interfere with their leaving the village, he only said that if the dissidents will leave the village suddenly, the Arabs are liable to return to it and also endanger Givat Shaul." 146 Avraham Lang, commander of a youth battalions company, and his deputy, Doron Hasdai, received orders from Yeshurun Shiff. Hasdai: "Shiff told us: 'There was an occupation of Deir Yassin, and there are rumors that that things happened there. The district commander has given an order to enter the village. There are no other forces, they are placing this on the youth battalions'. We understood that it we must take the village. He spoke about the possibility of a counter-attack, and he assured us that he would provide us with new Czech weapons, and instructors that would train us in using them. Afterward he traveled to Deir Yassin to coordinate final arrangements with the dissidents, and we joined him. No one stopped us at the entrance to the village. We stood some time on the side. Someone was moving bodies in a wheelbarrow and poured them from a balcony into a small trench. Across a length of about ten meters fires were burning with corpses in them. The smell of scorched flesh pursues me to this day. When they saw us, they felt uncomfortable. We did not speak with them. We were in shock. We got out of there. Shiff contacted Shaltiel by telephone from Beit Ha Kerem and told him what we saw. He said:: 'a crematorium, they are burning people'. Shiff told us: 'you have work and you must do it. It is a serious thing to enter the place with youth battalions, but you need to enter there quickly in the morning. Men of the unit were living in a dormitory in Beit Ha Kerem, sixteen and seventeen year olds, and their young instructors, and there they trained with the Czech weapons." 147 Some youth battalions instructors, commanded by Shlomo Caesar, patrolled on the way to Deir Yassin and saw the fires. Baruch Sharel saw the men transporting corpses to the quarry in the east of the village. "They were full of enthusiasm over the great victory", and he later related. "We were not professionals… we lacked experience, and we thought that they were very good soldiers." 148 Tzvi Ankori commanded the youth battalions company whose mission it was, according to him, 149 "to replace the Etzel forces in Deir Yassin and to clean up the corpses in the area before a delegation from the Red Cross came to the village." a Shaltiel and the men of his headquarters decided to prevent the exit of Etzel and Lehi men from Deir Yassin by force, and so compel them to bury the corpses. This operation, "Hagala", was placed on a unit of military police of the "Etzioni" brigade commanded by David Dreyfus. Here is Dreyfus's report to Shaltiel: "A representative of Lehi met me and demanded that we hold a discussion on the situation. I told him the demands of the district commander. The Lehi representative asked me and the district intelligence officer b for permission to go to his commander, to clarify the situation. We agreed. The Lehi commander did not accept the conditions we presented. We set up road blocks and we stood guard during the night. At 6:15 AM we received a notice from Oded c that his men were being replaced by 'Machmash' soldiers. In the view of 'Machmash' there was a need to position a look out and not to send men to the road blocks. After positioning the look out at 7:15 AM, I released my men. Meanwhile it became clear that the dissidents had planted a mine beside the school for the blind. We fired and exploded it. We returned at 9:00 AM. 150 On April 12 two physicians from Jerusalem, Dr. T Avigdori, and Dr. A. Druyan, entered Deir Yassin. In their report they wrote that on the invitation of the Jewish Agency, on April 12, 1948 they visited the village before noon. The village was empty. Houses were looted. Haganah commanders showed us bodies in various places, a mother and child who were killed by gunfire, two bodies of women who were killed by gunfire. In the quarry five bodies wounded from gunfire, and two youths aged thirteen or fourteen, also from gunfire… In the wadi twenty there were five bodies, one on the other, uncovered, children and women. We did not check every body. All were in clothing. Whole limbs. They did not abuse them. They did not bury them. There were no burial arrangements just piles of smoking bodies. There were twelve bodies of adults, and six burned children. We asked for more bodies. The Red Cross transported fifteen wounded and forty five bodies to Jerusalem. d There were more bodies in the houses. The Haganah commanders did not visit the houses. 151 In a symposium that took place years later at "Yad Ben Tzvi", Yehuda Lapidot related: "I was responsible for the village (Deir Yassin). Avigdori and Druyan came and said: they were sent by the Jewish Agency to report about a massacre and abuse, a but they will report only the truth. We sought to bury everywhere in the village without supervision. I approved. They related that there were ninety killed." 152 On the morning of 12 April around 40 youth battalions instructors and eighth graders went in three platoons from Beit Ha Kerem to Deir Yassin, and Yeshurun Shiff went with them, along with some men of his headquarters, and military police, under the command of David Dreyfus. At the entrance to the village they saw a road block of stones. Mordechai Raanan, Yehuda Lapidot and Pithya Zelibanski were standing behind it, with some of their soldiers. Some youth battalions and military police told the Etzel and Lehi men: "It is not possible for you to leave here before you bury all the corpses." Other youth battalions demanded that they leave there immediately. The exchange of words led to an exchange of blows. 153 Zelibanski: "The youth battalions commander told his soldiers in a loud voice, so that also heard, 'we will clean the place up after the contemptible dissidents have murdered and raped and befouled it'. This angered us very much. And one of my men took a machine gun from one of the youth battalions, pointed it at them and threatened to fire if they did not shut their mouths. Raanan was very shocked. I went to the man, I quietly took the machine gun from him and so the matter ended." 154 Tzvi Ankori: "I did not know there was an agreement between Haganah commanders and the dissidents about exchanging forces in the village. Orders for the young people interested me, and I wanted to condemn what happened at Deir Yassin, from the Zionist and educational perspective. I saw myself as a youth battalions man that needs to educate young people about humanistic values. Therefore I presented the exchange as a removal of the dissidents from the village, and I told the dissidents: 'get out of here'. They aimed their Sten guns and waited for a command to fire. I shouted to Raanan: 'stop your men'! 'you have caused this. There was an exchange of words, and finally he gave an order to his men, to turn around and leave." 155 Doron Hasdai: "We demanded that they bury the dead before they leave., and they demanded that we let them take out trucks loaded with food provisions. Yosef Bar Nun, commander of district 2, came to the village, and the atmosphere became heated. Our cultural officer, Shlomo Dinor, gave a speech condemning the dissidents, and Ankori conducted negotiations with them, and so we entered the village and we took positions. There were blows. Moshe (Mosh) Habib wept. A Lehi man asked him, 'Why are you weeping, boy'? And Mosh waved his rifle and hit him on the head. A large reinforcement of Etzel men came from Givat Shaul and so Shlomo Dinor told them, 'Take what you want and go away." 156 Yeshurun Shiff: "I entered the village after the youth battalions. I told the commander (of Etzel or Lehi), 'You are pigs'. My men surrounded them. I spoke with Shaltiel on the wireless. Shaltiel said: 'Disarm them, and if they will not lay down their weapons, open fire'. I said: 'I cannot do this to Jews'. Shaltiel said: 'This is an order'. Afterward he reversed himself." 157 In a report that he presented to David Shaltiel, the commander of the guard corps, whose nickname is Oded, blamed Yeshurun Shiff, who did not uphold the order "not to permit the dissidents to leave without undertaking what was required." 158 In contrast Shiff claimed, in a report that he presented to the operations officer of the brigade, Tzion Eldad, that he acted as he did after consuations with David Dreyfuss and with Meir Payil, and that Dreyfus is the one that did not fulfill the orders and conducted negotiations with the dissidents. Shiff claimed that the men of the military police did not have sufficient force to cope with the dissidents, since they had sent reinforcements to Deir Yassin in two trucks. "The force I had was designated to secure an abandoned front and not to settle a home front account, (so) it was explained to me and stressed in a half hour telephone conversation with the district commander." Eldad's answer to Shiff: "What you know about the affair, is finished. Check failures with malice." 159 The same day a Haganah poster was pasted up around Jerusalem: 160 "This morning the last men of Lehi and Etzel fled from Deir Yassin, and our forces entered the village. We were compelled to take this job on ourselves since the organizations of the dissidents have created a new hostile front in Jerusalem by their shameful operation, and now they have fled from this front and exposed the western neighborhoods of Jerusalem to Arab attacks… Out of shame we entered this place, where the human image of the Hebrew fighter has been desecrated by the dissidents and the honor of Hebrew weapons has been desecrated, and the honor of the Hebrew flag. A total of one hundred twenty killed. "The men of Haganah will try to bring about the burial of the corpses of Arabs killed, and will guard the graves and the little property in the village, which the dissidents have left behind after looting, and they will return it to their owners when the time comes." a On the afternoon of April 12, the men of Etzel and Lehi left Deir Yassin. And the youth battalions manned positions around the village. Shaltiel ordered Yehoshua Arieli to take the bodies out of the village and bury them, and he explained to me why: "Tomorrow a delegation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent will come (to the village), to check the situation." Arieli: "I combed the village from house to house. There were three or four concentrations of killed, each concentration in a corner of a house. Most of the killed were elderly, women and children, and they were at the entrance to the village and the first third of it. In the second third were a few corpses, and there were none in the last. It seems they managed to flee from there. I employed relatively older commanders for the burials. We were occupied with this all night. It was hard to evacuate the corpses from two of the houses, we received approval to blow up the houses with the corpses. We undertook this in the morning. We buried around seventy corpses in a collective grave, and we blew up two concentrations, around twenty corpses in each one." 161 Hillel Politi (a youth battalions instructor): "After we received the order there were arguments among us, over whether we are a burial society and if the youth battalions instructors are adapted to do this from the emotional perspective. The stink was terrible. They brought us gloves from the city, windbreaker jackets and cloths to cover the face. The corpses were transported two by two, by hand, to the quarry. A bulldozer was brought from the city and it covered the corpses with earth." 162 Eli Koret has related that at the time of the burial some men of the district command center were in Deir Yassin, and that Yeshurun Shiff was one of them. "I thought that this is something normal, that this is the face of war", Koret has said. 163 How Many Were Killed? How And Why The Baseless Number Became Accepted In an announcement to the press that Raanan composed, as mentioned, that same day (the press received it at 7:00 PM) it stated: "The village of Deir Yassin has been occupied. The battle was from house to house. We took captives. We were obligated to hold the village for forty eight hours and afterward hand it over to Haganah." Raanan answered the journalists' questions: "Until now they have counted two hundred fifty four Arabs killed." The foreign journalists relayed this information to the editorial offices, and that night the BBC reported in news broadcasts from London about two hundred fifty killed, half of whom were women and children. In 1987 Raanan said: "On that day I did not know, and I could not know, how many Arabs were killed. No one had counted the corpses. People assessed that a hundred or a hundred fifty people were killed. I told the journalists that two hundred fifty four were killed in order that they will publish a large number, and so that the Arabs will be shocked, not only in the area of Jerusalem but all over the country, and this objective was achieved. That is how this number took root in the public mind. Journalists, publicists, researchers and historians have related to it as to actual data, and no one has bothered to check what was the real number." 164 On 9 April the BBC reported from London on the basis of things Mordechai Raanan said to the journalists, that two hundred Arabs were killed in Deir Yassin, a, and the next day the Etzel radio station announced two hundred fifty four killed, on the basis of Raanan's report to Etzel headquarters in Tel Aviv. 165 That same day Meir Payil sent a report to Yisrael Galili, and he also specified this number and later noted it again at least three times, in his testimony preserved in the Jabotinsky Institute: "We know b about two hundred fifty four murdered Arabs", in a newspaper interview: "The underground commanders even refused a request that their soldiers bury two hundred fifty four fallen Arabs that were spread around in the area", and in an article that was published in the newspaper Yediot Ahronot: "The number of Arabs killed in Deir Yassin was two hundred fifty four, according to totals that were made by the youth battalions and staff from Jerusalem, who were forced to handle the burial after the Etzel and Lehi men abandoned the village and refused to handle this job. The number of murdered was therefore established by staff that were the most authorized to determine it. There is no sense in turning to other sources to know the truth in this matter - these sources had even less data." 166 Meir Payil's commander in the intelligence service, David Cohen (Avni), confirmed years later, according to his memory, that this was the number that Payil specified in his report, and he said: "The number seemed exaggerated to us, and we asked him how he arrived at it. Payil answered: 'I did not count all of them, but there is the report of the thing itself, in other words, from the Etzel commander in Jerusalem, Mordechai Raanan." 167 The author interviewed David Cohen on Kibbutz Beit Alfa in 1987: Milstein: How could you rely on a person as untrustworthy as Meir Payil? Cohen: The best men were sent to the field of battle. Payil was a mistaken alternative and we knew that we could not rely on his reports! Milstein: So you raised a charlatan that has educated IDF officers and commanders for decades. Cohen: This is the reason for the march of folly in history. Milstein: Most historians quote Meir Payil regarding the number of killed in Deir Yassin. Cohen: Most of the researchers are untrustworthy. Their statistics about the wars, at least, and in particular the War of Independence have no value! Also in the draft of The Book Of The State in the 1950s, IDF researchers, led by Netanel Lorch, wrote that two hundred forty Arabs were killed in Deir Yassin. 168 Yitzhak Levy, head of the Jerusalem intelligence service, who researched the events of the War of Independence in his city for more than a decade, and saw all the secret documents on this matter, has written in his book: "At the time of the operation and after it around two hundred fifty four people were killed." 169 This number has been published hundreds of times, in Hebrew, in Arabic, and in other languages. Haganah agent Shimon Monita: "No one counted the corpses, not even those that buried them, and everyone exaggerated their number. Most of them saw so many killed for the first time in their lives, and everyone was comfortable with the high number. The dissidents were interested in boasting and frightening the Arabs, the Arabs were interested in vilifying the Jews; the British were interested in vilifying the Jewish terrorists. Everyone was gripped by the number that Mordechai Raanan invented. We placed thirty corpses on the truck, this was the main concentration, and there were around another thirty corpses; in total around sixty. That is what I reported to my operator in the intelligence service, and he relayed my report to the head of the intelligence service." 170 Lehi intelligence man Moshe Idelstein has said: "They spoke about sixty one killed." 171 Intelligence officer Mordechai Gihon, who patrolled in the village on a mission from Shaltiel in the afternoon of April 9: "I did not count the killed. I assessed that there were four pits filled with corpses, in each pit twenty corpses, and another few dozen in the quarry. I threw out a number, a hundred and fifty." 172 Intelligence service man Yonah Feitelson patrolled in Deir Yassin on the morning of April 10. He saw eighty killed and reported that to his commander. 173 In the abovementioned poster that Haganah distributed in the streets of Jerusalem it speaks of one hundred twenty killed. When youth battalions commander Yehoshua Arieli returned from Deir Yassin on April 13, he told his wife that he and his cadets had buried seventy corpses and blew up forty (in other words one hundred and ten corpses). a In a 1981 newspaper interview a resident of the village, Muhamad Aaref Samir said: "I counted ninety four corpses on that day." 174 In a 1998 lecture, Palestinian researcher, Dr. Sharif Canana, from Bir Zeit University, stated that from his research it emerged that in Deir Yassin one hundred seven people were killed. 175 In April 1999, on the 51st anniversary of the incident at Deir Yassin, around one hundred Palestinians and a group of Israelis gathered for a memorial beside the village. They brought with them ninety three symbolic "burial coffins" in memory of the killed. 176 In an article that was published in the Palestinian newspaper El Ayam, on April 8, 2001 under the headline "Abu-Mahmud, Remains A Witness To The Massacre Of Deir Yassin', Mahmad Abu Mahmud Eliasini, one of the refugees of the village, relates what was known to him about the village and what occurred there at the time of its occupation. Al Ayam: "Abu Mahmud holds in his hand a detailed list of names of the killed and their ages, and it is a matter of 93 fallen, including three that are not from the village." 177 There is additional testimony from Ayish Zidan Eliasini, who is also a survivor from the village: "The Arab media, that worked to inflate the incidents of massacre then, had a large part in the fear aroused in the hearts of the Palestinians. They spoke about 250 martyrs, while the number did not go above one hundred. 178 As mentioned, according to the report of Meir Payil, the number of killed was two hundred fifty four, and he repeated that number three times. Consequently, it would appear that the number two hundred fifty four killed has no factual basis, and the Palestinian researcher from Bir Zeit, Dr. Sharif Canana, calls it: a lie whose source is in disputes between the Haganah organization on one hand and Etzel and Lehi on the other. 179 And nevertheless the defense, academic, and educational establishments in Israel have adopted it as an ironclad cultural attribute and as an expression of regret, as it were, about a massacre in Deir Yassin. This "regret" that has arisen is the desire to do away with the cultural and political power of "the dissidents" by means of a blood libel. In the sub-standard defense culture of Israel it is characteristic that a former commander of the IDF officers' school, an educator of officers in the IDF command headquarters, and the national security college, the intellectual authority of "The Institute For Defense Research" at the Tabenkin Institute in the Efal Seminar, a popular lecturer on Israel's military history – and the affinity of the Israeli media for "military history" – can specify the number two hundred fifty four murdered, while a Palestinian researcher from Bir Zeit University, who has no interest in diminishing "the murderous character of the Jews" speaks about one hundred seven. The Massacre That Didn't Happen In his statements about a massacre at Deir Yassin, Dr. Sharif Canana has claimed that there is a necessity first of all to define what is a "massacre." He defines "massacre" as "intentional killing of captives – civilians, military men and soldiers – after they have surrendered, after they have handed over their weapons and after they have ceased to represent a threat to the forces that have captured them." 180 I accept this definition in its entirety and add: killing during battle is not a massacre. In a battle in a built up area non-combatants are liable to die, including women, children and the elderly, and nevertheless, if they were killed at the time of battle this is not a matter of a massacre. This begs the question: whether in Deir Yassin the people were killed at the time of battle or after occupation of the village? In the first secret circular that the Haganah intelligence service distributed to senior commanders about the events at Deir Yassin, on April 18, 1948, it states: "When the first wounded and killed dissidents fell in the battle there was much confusion in their ranks. Discipline was flawed. Each small unit conducted the battle separately. The occupation was undertaken with brutality. Entire families were killed and bodies piled up one upon the other" Not a word is written in the circular about a massacre. Statements of eye witnesses and other documents from that time affirm the statements of the intelligence service. 181 The research findings as conveyed earlier here, show that most of the Arabs from Deir Yassin were killed not after the occupation, but at the time of the battle. Most of them were killed inside their houses when Etzel and Lehi soldiers broke in on them, or when they blew them up, and in the difficult exchanges of fire. They were also killed by Palmach soldiers who threw hand grenades into the houses, when they broke into the village, at a later stage. Some were killed from gunshots from the Haganah machine gun, and others died from the gunshots of Arab snipers who fired at the inhabitants that were forced to carry stretchers with those struck by the attackers. More data comes from the testimonies, and states that in a meeting of Etzel and Lehi commanders before the battle, the suggestion (that was raised) to also kill civilians, was not accepted, and an order was given to the soldiers to behave according to the Geneva Accords. Considering the high level of discipline in both organizations, one needs to eliminate the possibility that the soldiers acted against orders. Furthermore, before the start of the attack the attackers called to the inhabitants on the loudspeaker, to leave the village. The writer Amos Kenan, who took part in the battle of Deir Yassin, as a unit commander of a Lehi force, and a left-wing activist in Israel for many years, commented in a newspaper interview with Tzipi Shohat in 1996, about the myth of a massacre: "I have never denied that I was there, but inasmuch as I was in hospital already at 7:00 AM, I cannot give eye witness testimony. I know enough from what my comrades told me, and they have said that the matter of a massacre is simply a complete lie. There was no massacre. There was a lack of organization. Everyone fired from out of his house, and men fired back in the direction of the houses from which gunfire was coming. I was not wounded because I slipped on a banana. They shot me, I know from where. "I examine this as a detective examines a murder mystery. I want to know who had the motivation and who profited from the affair, and I say that at least three establishments had motivations and they profited from this:the official Arab establishment, that did not accept partition, could have used Deir Yassin as a platform on which the Arab refugees from Palestine were deported. The British establishment, as mentioned, and the Jewish establishment that went and made a Deir Yassin everywhere it could in Palestine. And part of this I merited to see with my own eyes." Tzipi Shohat: "If the massacre is a historical lie, as you say, why do you refrain from speaking about this?" "If they would not use Deir Yassin as they have used it, I would have no inhibition to speak about this. Since this is something that is a stigma, and when I speak about this it sounds strange, and in addition it does not conform to my present political opinions – so this is unpleasant." 182 The story of a massacre in Deir Yassin is mainly based on three rationales: On the identity of the killed and the condition of the corpses. On testimonies of the inhabitants of the village. On the report, testimonies and publications of Meir Payil. 1. The identity of the killed and the condition of the corpses: The fact that most of the killed were elderly, women and children, does not prove that they were massacred after the battle, since the battle occurred, as mentioned, in a built up area. Most of the inhabitants who were present in the village, were not young men, since these fled immediately when they realized that they did not have the ability to hold off the attack. Among those that remained were also those that disguised themselves as women. Yisrael Natach has related: a "Refugees came from Deir Yassin and related that Jews have discovered that Arab soldiers were disguised as women. The Jews conducted searches also on women. One of those checked understood that he was caught, pulled out a pistol and fired at the Jewish commander. His comrades, who were wild with anger, fired in every direction and killed the Arabs in the area. I depicted a Jewish soldier stabbing an Arab woman with a rifle bayonet. I did not explain that he did not stab and the woman was a man. I gave this drawing for publication in the newspapers, through the Arab command center in Jerusalem, with additional information, that in Deir Yassin six hundred women were slaughtered, five hundred men and four hundred children. I exaggerated intentionally, to arouse fear in the Arabs. My drawing was published in one of the Arab newspapers." 183 The testimonies on the condition of the killed from various figures that reached the place after some days – the Red Cross representative, physicians, Haganah staff – do not establish when and how they were killed, inasmuch as the corpses did not remain during these days in the same condition. One should note also that during the evacuation operation, Palmach men blew up the houses with the corpses. 2. Testimonies of the village inhabitants: On May 1, 1981 the testimony of Muhmad Aaref Samir, a survivor of Deir Yassin who was supervisor of professional and artistic education in Judea and Samaria on behalf of the Jordanian government until the Six Day War, was published in Hebrew in the Jerusalem newspaper "Kol Ha Ir" "At 3:00 AM the village was attacked by people from Lehi and Etzel. The village guards who were equipped with various hunting rifles, did not even manage to fire warning shots. They were surprised to hear voices in Hebrew at such an early hour. At 4:00 AM approximately the gunfire started at the eastern edge of the village. Many times (before then) a curfew was imposed, and when the loudspeaker of the British would call at the edge of the village I would be able to hear it at the other edge. Moreover, a shout that was heard in Givat Shaul, even without a loudspeaker, would be clearly heard in our village. In the morning of that day, we heard nothing. Not a loudspeaker and not shouts. We awoke to the sound of gunfire. The first victims were workers that went out to work at an early hour. They were massacred without delay. Afterward they started to shell with a light mortar, that caused practically no damage. a Then it all continued inside the houses. " From 5:00 AM until 11:00 AM there was methodical murder b, while they passed from house to house. At the eastern edge of the village, no one came out clean. Whole families were exterminated. At 6:00 AM, they took twenty one young men from the village, age twenty five approximately, they stood them in a line, beside the post office of today, and they executed them. Many women that watched the frightening scene went crazy, and some are hospitalized to this day. A pregnant woman who returned with her son from the bakery, was murdered and her belly ripped through, after her son was murdered in her eyes. A Bren machine gun was positioned in one of the village buildings, and it would fire at all who passed into its line of fire. My cousin went out to see what happened to his uncle, who was shot a few minutes earlier, and he also was killed. His father who went out after his son, was murdered by the same Bren gun, and the mother that came to find out about the fate of her dear ones, died beside them. Ayish Zidan, who was a guard in Givat Shaul, came to see what is happening and was killed. They gathered ninety four corpses that day. c No one has told us where they buried them and we have not asked. For believing people, the corpse is not important. The spirit is still with us. "At 11:00 AM men came with trucks and they started to gather prisoners. Until 9:00 PM the prisoners were concentrated in trucks in Givat Shaul, and from there they were transported to the Old City. You see, I live in the village of Ramon, in my splendid house with marble columns and carpets, but I still live in Deir Yassin." The family of Muhmad Aaref and the family of his wife fled from Deir Yassin to Ein Kerem, went up Malha Road to the Old City and from there went to the village of Ramon." 184 A British crew (police officers, a physician and nurses) interrogated survivors of Deir Yassin in Silwan (Shiloah village). The head of the team, Richard T. Katling, aide to the head of CID, wrote on April 15, 1948: "There is no doubt that the attacking Jews committed many acts of sexual terror. Many school pupils tender in years, were raped and afterward massacred. They abused the elderly also. A story is going around about a young woman that was torn in two, just like that. Many infants were slaughtered and killed. I saw an elderly woman that claims that she is age 104; who was hit hard in her head with rifle butts. Bracelets were torn off of arms and rings from fingers, and parts of the ears of women were cut off and so on. to remove earrings." A woman from Deir Yassin related to one of the interrogators: "One man shot a bullet in the neck of my sister Dalhiya, who was in the ninth month of pregnancy, and afterward they cut open her belly with a butcher knife." Nana Halil, age 16, has related: "I saw a man take a sword and quickly rend my neighbor Jemal from head to toe, afterward he did the same thing on the steps of our house, to my uncle, Patchi." 185 These testimonies do not conform to the testimonies of Dr. Engle and the physicians Avigdori and Druyan noted above, who examined the corpses in Deir Yassin and did not find on them signs of abuse or rape. According to their findings, all the killed died from gunfire. Around fifty years after the battle one of the editors of a Palestinian radio station in 1948 testified to the producer of a BBC films series about fifty years of the Arab/Jewish conflict, that the secretary of the Supreme Arab Council ordered them to exaggerate Jewish abuses of corpses and to report about murders of children and about rapes of pregnant women. One of the inhabitants of the village has given similar testimony. 186 Even without these testimonies, and without orders from above, it is very reasonable that the inhabitants exaggerated to the utmost and a significant part of their testimonies is the fruit of imagination – their descriptions are simply not possible. Abuse of corpses is part of the Arab battle culture, even from the days of Mohammad. In the War of Independence there were more than a few cases of Arab abuse of Jewish corpses. The most prominent case was the affair of the 35. 187 In contrast, Jewish battle culture dissociates itself from abusing corpses, and claims about abusing corpses or about rape of women pregnant or not pregnant, are not heard, except in the Deir Yassin affair. Consequently a claim of massacre cannot be based on these testimonies. Meir Payil Regarding a massacre after the fighting there is but one single testimony, of Meir Payil. According to his testimony, Payil was in the village at the time of the battle, and also after the occupation. He has testified: "I saw units of Etzel and Lehi men pass from house to house and fire a Tommy Gun a at anyone they found in them. During the operation I did not sense a difference in the behavior of Etzel and Lehi men. Men (Arabs) I nearly did not see – I assume that most of them fled at the beginning of the battle – but I saw mainly women, elderly people and children. They were murdered in groups; they were crowded into the corners of the rooms, and the soldiers made bursts of fire on them. In the afternoon they grabbed fifteen or twenty men, who were unarmed when I saw them, loaded them on a freight truck and they traveled in the direction of Jerusalem. I heard afterward that they led the Arabs in the neighborhoods of Jerusalem, as a sort of victory procession. There were calls to raise spirits. Shouts were heard from the crowd: 'Take ten Lirot and let me kill one', but they did not do it. They returned these Arabs to the village and they murdered them in the quarry between Givat Shaul and the village. I saw them with my own eyes in the afternoon. The massacre in the village continued a number of hours. None of the commanders shouted or prevented this…I shouted, I looked for the commanders, with the aid of a Lehi member that invited me. They asked him: 'who is this'? and he replied: 'My friend from Palmach days'. I sharply shouted: "Have you gone crazy' And so one of the Lehi commanders answered me: 'This is not your business', and afterward he asked me: 'And what will we do with them?' I asked: 'Transfer them to the Arab area'. "I don't know if by themselves they sobered up or perhaps my shouts influenced some of them. In any case I saw afterward that they were placing the children and women that remained into a school building. Their number reached two hundred fifty or three hundred. I heard arguments, whether to blow up the building on the ones inside. In the afternoon they led all those from inside to Jerusalem and put them in the Arab area of the city. I got out of there. While going I saw the Etzel and Lehi men, their faces as the faces of murderers, leaving the village with chickens, sheep and other booty." 188 In 1971, Meir Payil told the authors of the "History of Haganah": "At the end of that Friday (9 April), or the next day, on the Sabbath, early morning, I wrote the letter to Hillel (i.e. Yisrael Galili) a, in which I described what I saw, and in the morning I gave it to David Shaltiel so that he would relay it to Tel Aviv. On the Sabbath or on Sunday, I met Avraham Arsat b who told me: 'I could kiss you'. From this I understand that they have read the letter in the Jerusalem command center. A notice about Deir Yassin came from General Headquarters, in which I detected some quotes from my letter to Hillel." In other testimony Payil has related that he started his report with a quote from Bialik's "In The City Of The Killing." According to him he was in Deir Yassin the whole day of battle and reported to Galili about the massacre of two hundred fifty people, most of whom were elderly, women and children, many of whom were murdered after the occupation. 189 This was the first intelligence report that heads of the early Jewish settlement and Haganah commanders received about Deir Yassin, and the author of the report has written that he was an eye witness to acts of murder. Did Meir Payil Report Truthfully? At the beginning of the report mentioned above and which appeared in a circular that was distributed among "Haganah Soldiers", Payil notes: "On Friday, 9 April, at 1600 hours I was invited by one of the Lehi commanders to visit the "occupied" village. I stayed in the village with the Lehi man around an hour and I could see all the acts of the dissidents there." 190 In all of Payil's various testimonies, there is a pronounced contradiction about the time in which he stayed in Deir Yassin: in the report he wrote that he stayed in the village around an hour, and in later testimony he claimed that he stayed in Deir Yassin all during the day of the battle. And even his coming to the village at 1600 hours, indeed he came after the battle was finished and he certainly could not have been an eye witness to all the events of the battle that he noted in his testimonies. In the continuation of that report he writes: "3. The men of the dissidents were wandering around while robbing and stealing everything that came to hand: chickens, radio sets, sugar, silver, gold, and more and more. A large part of all the booty entered the personal pockets of "the soldiers." 4. Every one of the dissidents walked around the village filthy with blood and proud of the number of people he had killed. Prominent among them was the lack of education and intelligence that characterizes our corps."
But there is a much more serious claim. Meir Payil Was Not There Here is part of an interview with Dr. Meir Payil in the newspaper Hadashot from 9-2-91: "Was there a massacre in Deir Yassin? "Certainly there was. To my regret, there was a massacre. I was there, I saw it, I took photographs, I composed a report. What is said in the report? "What happened there. Men of Etzel and Lehi made a massacre. Around 250 Arabs were killed, mostly children, women and elderly. Almost all of the ones massacred were murdered after the battle. Four Etzel and Lehi men were killed. What did you do there? "I was there on behalf of Haganah. I went in to see what is happening without asking permission. They did not notice me at all. a And when they noticed that you were there? "They did not know, because I did not ever publish the report. I sent it secretly to the head of the Haganah national command center, Yisrael Galili. I included the pictures I photographed, including the negatives." Moshe Idelstein – who was formerly with the Palmach and changed over to Lehi, and is the person that Meir Payil has said called him to Deir Yassin – has told the author (in the presence of Moshe Barzilay): "I did not invite Meir Payil, and he was not in Deir Yassin." 192 The Etzel and Lehi men, whom the author has interviewed, have said that Payil was not in Deir Yassin and it does not make sense that he was there without their knowing. Yehoshua Zatler, Mordechai Raanan, Moshe Barzilay, Yehuda Lapidot and Pithiya Zelibanski, have said that they did not know then that Meir Payil worked against them on behalf of Haganah, and that they did not see him in Deir Yassin. 193 Meir Payil's claim that he was in Deir Yassin also has no corroborating testimony from Haganah men. In testimonies, documents and interviews from David Shaltiel, Zalman Maret, Tzion Eldad, Yeshurun Shiff, and Shimon Monita, Payil's name and nickname (Avraham and Ram) are not mentioned. Meir Payil has told about conversations that were conducted between him and Palmach soldiers in Deir Yassin. Moshe Eren – who is mentioned in Meir Payil's testimony – and Mordechai Gihon, who both knew Meir Payil, have said that they did not see him in Deir Yassin. 194 Shlomo Havilav, who was the commander of west Jerusalem, and on April 9 was staying in Givat Shaul, has said: "I did not see Meir Payil. I knew him well. If he was there I would remember him." 195 Yehoshua Arieli also, who supervised the burial of the killed, has said that he did not want Meir Payil in Deir Yassin and in any case he did not speak with him, not about the number of corpses that were buried and not about any other topic, not in April 1948 and not years later, even though it would be reasonable that a person who calls himself a military historian, that deals much with the Deir Yassin affair, and who quotes Arieli's report, would talk with him. 196 On April 12, 1948 the intelligence service reported: "Seven elderly and women that were taken captive by Etzel were transferred on freight trucks openly in the streets of the city. Afterward they were transferred to quarries in Deir Yassin and they were murdered." 197 Yitzhak Levy, who was head of the Jerusalem intelligence service wrote to Knesset Member Menachem Begin in 1971: "After occupation of the village men, women and children were loaded on freight trucks and ridden through the streets of Jerusalem. Afterward most of them were returned to the village and shot with rifles and machine guns. This is the truth, and it is fixed and preserved in the country's institutions." 198 In his book Nine Measures Levy relies upon Payil's testimony. 199 The commander of Givat Shaul, Yona Ben Sasson, has claimed, in contrast, that there was no murdering at the quarry: the dissidents did want to eliminate Arabs, but it did not come to the quarry and he warned them not to do this, and "they did not shoot captives in the quarry." 200 Payil has related that someone accompanied him who photographed the acts of the massacre, and that he sent the photographic films to Yisrael Galili, together with the report, and the photographs are preserved in the IDF archives. Archives staff have told the author that photographs of corpses from Deir Yassin are preserved there, and that it is impossible to know from these photographs how the people were killed or when the photographs were taken. Even though he has defined the Israeli testimonies about the Deir Yassin affair as untrustworthy, Dr. Sharif Canana has stated that the testimony of Meir Payil is reliable, for the following reasons: Payil was a witness to the massacre; Payil served in Haganah intelligence and was sent to Deir Yassin to assess the operations of the Etzel and Lehi men in anticipation of their being included in the Hebrew army that was going to arise after establishment of the state. Payil's testimony was given in 1948 not in connection with propaganda, but in a secret document to his superiors or in a newspaper article, when there was no reason to lie further regarding Deir Yassin. 201 But Dr. Canana, and the others that hold the opinion that a massacre occurred in Deir Yassin, ignore the claim that I raised as early as 1991, that Meir Payil was not in Deir Yassin at all. That indeed Payil claimed that Moshe Idelstein invited him to join the battle and Idelstein denies this. Payil has claimed that he spoke with Palmach men in Deir Yassin, and the deputy commander of the force, Moshe Eren, denies this. Payil has claimed that in the IDF archives are photographs that document the massacre and the IDF archives staff denies this. Dr. Canana and others, do not understand or ignore the possibility that in 1948 Meir Payil had an interest, and even a mission, to fabricate the massacre in Deir Yassin, as it is possible to learn from the testimony of Mordechai Gihon who was it seems the only Haganah man that patrolled with his soldiers in Deir Yassin on the day of the battle, as noted above. According to Gihon, on that day, April 9, he relayed a report to his commanders on his findings and in that report there are no descriptions of a massacre or abuse. The next day, April 10, Meir Payil turned to him and told him: "Motka, what kind of report have you written?! Write a more Zionistic report, that will describe acts of massacre and abuse in order to help efforts to deligitimize Etzel and Lehi" (see further on). Gihon composed a fabricated report about acts of massacre and abuse and he relayed it to his commanders. 202 I published this testimony in 1991, in volume 4 of my book "History Of The War Of Independence" in Hebrew, and in 2000 in an English translation. Gihon has not denied these things, even though if I lied, this is a libel not only against Meir Payil, but also against Gihon himself. Dr. Canana and others have ignored these findings, even though they completely undermine the trustworthiness of Meir Payil. If the testimony of Meir Payil does not stand up, there is no basis to the claim that a massacre occurred in Deir Yassin. Military Outcomes Events in Deir Yassin immediately influenced happenings in the Jerusalem district, later influenced the fate of the war in all the zones, and they had long range outcomes, at least until the day on which these lines are written. On April 11, 1948, a notice was published in the newspaper Davar: "Jewish sources note that if the Jews will succeed in holding two occupied positions, Castel and Deir Yassin, they will control half the mountainous road from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv." And indeed, after April 9, Hebrew transportation took place without disturbance between Neve Ilan and Jerusalem, a part of the road that was very problematic until then. The ability of the Arabs to attack the Jewish neighborhoods in the west of Jerusalem was weakened. The situation of the Arab villages in the south west of the city got much worse, and the morale of many of the Jews of Jerusalem went up (it is worth remembering that one of the aims of Operation Nachshon was to prevent the spirits of the Jews of Jerusalem from breaking.) Four days later, on April 13, the Arabs massacred seventy eight passengers of the "Hadassah Convoy", many of whom were physicians and nurses. a This was their revenge for Deir Yassin. Their happiness from revenge did not diminish the impression from stories of atrocities. Emil Guri, commander of the Jerusalem front after Abed El Khader El Husseini, told journalists on April 18: "Occupation of Deir Yassin created fear…The peasants abandoned their homes and fled from their villages." 203 According to a British assessment: "The Arab population in Palestine was broken after Deir Yassin." 204 Shimon Monita: "After Deir Yassin I returned to the Palmach and took part in attacks on Arab villages. Most of the inhabitants fled before we arrived, and the villages were captured without fighting or after a short battle." 205 Not only peasants fled from their homes, but also urban Arabs from Jerusalem and also from other areas. In that same month Haganah took control over Haifa. The intelligence service reported that the fear of a fate similar to that of the inhabitants of Deir Yassin was one of the factors in breaking the Arab inhabitants of Haifa and causing them to flee. The senior Jordanian commander, Abdallah El Tal, has written in his memoirs: "The purpose of the Jews in this operation was far reaching, and they achieved this objective. They created dread and fear in all the villages, and their inhabitants fled from them." 206 Yisrael Bar, who was a senior Haganah and IDF commander in the War of Independence and afterward a military historian and analyst for the newspaper Ha'Aretz b has written: "in the short range Deir Yassin brought advantages, and contributed to the flight of masses of Arabs." 207 Without the myth of Deir Yassin it is doubtful if the Jews would have succeeded in defeating the Arabs of Palestine until the Declaration of Independence. Without this defeat, it is doubtful if the state of Israel would have succeeded in coping with the attacks of standing armies from outside and attacks of irregular units from within. Deir Yassin In The Political Establishment On April 11, the secretary of the Supreme Arab Committee, Hussein Hildi, called on King Abdallah to become involved in the affairs of Palestine, and reasoned: "see what has happened in Deir Yassin." 208 Members of the Jewish Agency leadership sent a letter to Abdallah and tried to prevent cancellation of the agreement between him and Ben Gurion. They condemned the murder in Deir Yassin and called it "a brutal and barbaric act that does not conform with the spirit of the Jewish people and with its cultured heritage and tradition", and they asked Abdallah to act so that the present Palestine conflict – if it is not possible to prevent or stop it – will be conducted in conformity to the standards of war that are acceptable to cultured people." 209 That same day the head of Abdallah's bureau replied to them in a telegram: "It is known that the Jewish Agency conducts Zionist activities in every place, and that there is no Jew that does anything against its policies. The case of Deir Yassin is one of the causes that is liable to let matters fall not according to the preachers in America and other countries for a cease fire, and the King thinks that the Jewish Agency will do everything that is required regarding atrocities that no one would commit in this period." 210 The Deir Yassin affair was an establishing event for the involvement of a number of figures, and the main factor was the political struggles within the early Jewish settlement. It seems that the Deir Yassin affair was exploited for advancing political party interests. Mapam and the Revisionist party were not partners in the leadership of the Jewish Agency, which was a state government in the making. Mapam had much influence over the fighting forces of Haganah, and the Revisionist party had influence (albeit indirectly) over Etzel and Lehi. When the time for the end of the British Mandate approached, these two parties were interested in taking part in decision making, and each of them exploited every event in order to advance this interest. Mapam, which was established in January, 1944, was composed of Shomer Hatzair, The United Labor Movement (many of whom were members of the United Kibbutz Movement that belonged to it) and Left Wing Zionists, that left Mapai in 1944, and saw themselves as elite pioneers. In the Zionist Congress in Basel, that took place in December 1946, they were expelled from the process of policy making decisions. After the UN resolution, when the war broke out, they hoped to return to the senior leadership, but their hopes were dashed. The head of the Haganah national command center was one of them (Yisrael Galili), but his appointment was not party-related, but rather personal. In a meeting of the Histadrut executive committee, on December 3, 1947, Yitzhak Ben Aharon, a man of the United Labor Movement said that "masses of Jews need to unite in joint responsibility for securing the sovereignty of the workers' movement", and a leader of Shomer Hatzair, Meir Yaari, said that if the workers' movement will not stand at the head of the state "the independence of the country and its character, the whole Zionist vision and its achievement are in danger." 211 In a meeting of the Mapai Central Committee, on December 7, 1947, Ben Gurion said that if a national coalition will not be established "We will establish for ten years a working bloc of the eight labor parties." 212 These predictions were not realized. Until April Ben Gurion led, practically alone, a relatively reduced coalition of Mapai with the general Zionists, and with two religious parties, Mizrahi, and Labor Mizrahi. Ben Gurion's right wing and religious partners pressured him to reach an operational agreement with Etzel and Lehi and to integrate the Revisionist party in the coalition. Mid January 1948 the US Jewish leader Abba Hillel Silver, the man who assured Ben Gurion's selection as chairman of the Jewish Agency in December 1946, and the removal of Chaim Weizman from his post as president of the Zionist Federation, visited Palestine. Silver demanded that Ben Gurion not dismantle Etzel and Lehi but reach an agreement with them. In a press conference (January 16) Silver said that the Jews of the US, who aided in the failure of the Morison Grady Plan and in bringing about the UN resolution of November 29, demand "unity of all forces." 213 Ben Gurion could not ignore Silver's demands. On account of the permutations that had occurred in the Zionist movement and the Hebrew settlement as a result of the war, and on account of the non-cooperation in Jewish Agency leadership, as mentioned, in January 1948, the two parties Shomer Ha Tzair and United Labor Movement united and established Mapam (United Workers' Party). Most of the speakers at the founding conference of the new party spoke about the danger expected from an agreement between Haganah and Etzel and Lehi, if it happens. Here are parts of the statements of Yakov Riftin, a Shomer Ha Tzair representative and member of the settlement security board: "From the stage of the gathering of the representatives we have fought with all our strength against entry of those boycotting the settlement's institutions through the back door, without democratic recognition, against the terrorist groups and contact with them. We see in all negotiations between the settlement's institutions and the terrorist groups, a breach of the agreed decisions of the Histadrut." 214 Meir Yaari said that the alternative was between active hegemony and a coalition with reactionaries that would bring about a civil war, and he claimed that Ben Gurion was trying "to give a stamp of approval to the fascist terrorist organizations and to include them in the Haganah front line." 215 The Mapam founding conference decided on "uncompromising resistance to Jewish terrorism that is causing our war to fail from within." 216 In one of the first debates in the Mapam political committee one of the party's leaders said: "Our party needs to be not only a political factor but a military establishment in small terms. It is incumbent on us to establish an institution that will be an initiator in the technical military field. Consultations of our members on military problems will produce urgency. For example the active work regarding the gangs…All of our members in this field need to be a collective, as a partner in some security committee on behalf of the political committee." Yisrael Bar Yehuda proposed "electing a small committee of four to six men maximum, that would make decisions on these matters, a political commissar of the army or a political committee for the army. It is incumbent on our people – before they go to Ben Gurion – to come to this committee. Yaari supported Bar Yehuda's proposal and added: "Besides consultations and discussions and an agreement, there is a need for our political command center. There is no need to disparage the generals, but rather artificial wars between leaders. There is a need for a small consulting force with leadership force, a directing hand." Ben Aharon asked: "What do we do if a government will be established without us?" and he proposed that if Mapam's conditions for participation in the government will be rejected "there will be our independent activity, our concept of government. It is incumbent on us to appear as an independent factor regarding the UN, with a government proposal, if we will succeed in also concentrating around us other circles. It is incumbent on us to direct the matter to a step like this." 217 Two of the demands that Mapam presented to Mapai, as conditions for joining the future government were: no agreement with Etzel and no joining of the Revisionists to this government in the future and to the Jewish Agency leadership in the present. Mapam did appoint a committee for army and police affairs (on February 6): its members included – the Soviet agent Yisrael Bar (aide to Yigal Yadin in the operational wing), Moshe Man (member of Kibbutz Merhavia, who then headed a department in the general headquarters and who established that month the Golani brigade), Baruch Ravinov (a member of Kibbutz Beit Alfa and head of the financial wing in the national command of Haganah) and Yitzhak Sadeh (then Ben Gurion's advisor). A month later Mapam founded the party's security committee: Yisrael Bar Yehuda, Yakov Hazan, Meir Yaari, Yitzhaki, Luba Levita, Moshe Sneh and Eliezer Paray, and they included in it members of the party that filled jobs in the security institutions: Yisrael Galili, Yakov Riftin, Berl Rapator, and heads of the wings in the general headquarters who were party members." 218 At the beginning of March it seemed that the negotiations between representatives of the Jewish Agency leadership (Moshe Shapira, Rabbi Maimon, Yitzhak Greenboim, and David Remez) and representatives of Etzel were about to conclude successfully. In the newspaper Al Ha Mishmar, Riftin wrote (on March 4): "We will rise up against the fascist treason…If there is yet someone in the workers' movement that dreams, and not only dreams, about a settlement and agreement with the terrorist men, whoever presents the possibility of such an agreement is blurring the truth, deluding the public, disturbing the mass recruitment of the nation, for the sake of denouncing the terrorist men, and removing them from the stage of our public lives." Two days later, Tzvi Luria said in a Mapam meeting in Tel Aviv: "A terrorist salon is no less dangerous than fascist terrorism. Neither an agreement nor neutrality is possible with them…The Mapai government with the reactionaries will not hold fast more than four months…Mapam will not agree that key positions in the government, the army, security, internal policy, recruitment of the home front, immigration and settlement, will be expropriated from the forces of progress and the public of workers in it. We will demand our share. We will not sit with fascists." 219 It is not possible to ignore the Bolshevist rhetoric in these statements, rhetoric that had seeped deeply into Israel's political culture. Two representatives of the Jewish Agency and Etzel reached an agreement through negotiations on March 7. The agreement was contingent on approval of the Zionist executive committee, that was about to convene in Tel Aviv. On March 17 the Jewish Agency leadership convened for a meeting in which Ben Gurion did not take part. Moshe Shapira (a member of the negotiating committee with Etzel and leader of Mizrahi Workers) proposed "asking Ben Gurion to give instructions to stop activity against Etzel men, that was liable to cause the agreements about unifying forces in the early Jewish settlement, to fail." One learns from his statements regarding a worry that army commanders opposed to the agreement were liable to initiate such activity. a His proposal was accepted. 220 The next day the Mapam faction in the Histadrut demanded that the Histadrut executive committee immediately debate the proposed agreement with Etzel, and called to convene the Histadrut Council in order to debate the agreement "that is liable to have a fatal influence on our steadfastness, on the purity of Haganah, on the image of the early Jewish settlement and the status of the workers' public in the settlement." 221 On April 1, the Mapam political committee distributed portfolios in the "national leadership" that was about to be established, and Ben Aharon proposed: "we will demand the interior ministry portfolio...for example, the police need to be ours…interior is preparation for our position. So we can organize the war against the dissidents." 222 It seems that in the eyes of many of the Mapam leaders and activists the main disaster of the Hebrew settlement was not the defeat in the war of the roads and not the US withdrawal of support for establishment of a Jewish state, but the expected agreement between Haganah and Etzel, and all means of causing its failure were acceptable in their eyes. The decisive battle in this matter was about to be conducted in a meeting of the Zionist executive committee, and just then the incidents at Deir Yassin happened for the Mapam leaders. The fabricated reports of Mordechai Gihon and Meir Payil were aimed to serve them in this struggle. The Struggle In The Zionist Institutions The agreement between Haganah and Etzel occupied the members of the Zionist executive committee in debates of the committees and in conversations behind the scenes. It was also one of the topics of speeches in the plenary. Already in the opening meeting on April 6, men of the right and men of the left exchanged verbal blows. Dr. Herzel Rosenbloom, a man of the Revisionist party, proposed debating the method of defending the early Jewish settlement and determining who is responsible for the terrible situation: "In the view of many the responsible party is the Haganah supreme command." Ben Gurion replied in Bolshevik style: "For some time the best of our youth is shedding its blood for the sake of defending the Jewish settlement, and at the same time a campaign of slander and humiliation of Haganah is being conducted by elements that do not take part in it and are trying to break it, and it is intolerable that the meeting of the Zionist executive committee will open by seating this part of the Jewish settlement, that sheds its blood, on the bench of the accused." Someone from the Revisionist bench shouted: "We are seeking an investigation against you, not against the defenders, you not them!" Yisrael Bar Yehuda proposed investigating the connection between the Revisionists and "thefts of animals and goats." In this meeting it was decided to establish a committee on policy and security, that will debate the question of the agreement with Etzel. 223 In the plenary meeting of the Zionist executive committee, on April 7, Meir Grossman, from the Revisionist party, crowned the men of Etzel and Lehi with the title "The ones possessing the greatest military experience in the Jewish settlement", and claimed that defense was being damaged by their non-participation in the conduct of the war. "They have reached agreement with Etzel and it has not been approved, and this is a national crime", said Grossman. "The diaspora will not help if there will not be unity." At the same meeting Yitzhak Tabenkin, from the United Workers Party, declared: "We do not recognize the right of the coalition without us…We do not recognize the moral right, we do not recognize the political logic (in establishing the Zionist coalition without Mapam)." All the Mapai speakers and all the Mapam speakers opposed approving the agreement with Etzel and Lehi, and all the general Zionist speakers and all the religious party speakers favored it. 224 On April 9 the Jewish Agency leadership approved the agreement. Nine voted in favor, four opposed, three abstained and three did not take part in the vote. Even though all the opponents were from Mapai, Mapam placed responsibility for approving the agreement on Mapai. In an article that was printed in the Mapam newspaper Al Ha Mishmar it stated: most of the representatives of Mapai want to remain consistent in declared opposition to the agreement and to create an alibi toward the workers and progressive circles, and to be forced on this point. 225 It was hard for the political committee of the Zionist executive committee to decide, and the agreement was not approved until April 11; the conference of the Zionist executive committee was closed on the 12th of the month and it was not possible to extend it, because the departing flight of the representatives from the US was scheduled for April 13. On the morning of April 11, when the political committee convened for a meeting its members had already read in the newspapers and heard on the radio about the incidents at Deir Yassin, and now they were also informed about Haganah's reaction about the attack. In any case the agreement was approved, by a majority of 14 to 12, with the abstention of the Hadassah representative. The final decision therefore returned to the plenary of the Zionist executive committee. 226 On April 12 the opponents of the agreement made a last effort to prevent it, and the incidents at Deir Yassin were means to achieve that objective. All around Jerusalem a poster of the district command a was distributed. An article from Al Ha Mishmar represented one against the other the occupation of Deir Yassin and the occupation of Colonia by a unit of Palmach on April 10. The occupation of Deir Yassin was described as an atrocity of a backward cult, while the operation in Colonia, as a chapter in the overall plan for defending the Jewish settlement. "In Deir Yassin the dissidents undertook an exceptional operation accompanied by abuse, fascist wildness, and robbery, and again it has been clearly proven that the existence of the organizations of dissidents is a malignant spectacle fraught with danger for the Jewish settlement its outward establishments and its internal development…The question is whether the agreement on its basic surrender to acts of deceit will be advantageous to the fateful establishment." In the plenary of the Zionist executive committee, the representatives of Mapam tried to postpone the vote, and they made declarations about the atrocity of Deir Yassin. So they pressured the hesitating delegates not to vote for the agreement. On the eve of April 13, at 2:00 AM, when it seemed already that it was impossible to prevent the vote, Moshe Arem shouted: "This is an agreement with murderers, with the heroes of Deir Yassin!" Only at 5:00 AM did the members of the Zionist executive committee finally vote, and the agreement was approved by a majority of thirty nine vs thirty two. Four abstained, and one of the abstainers was David Remez, a member of the negotiating committee with Etzel. 227 The Struggle Over The Myth After approval of the agreement, the political, social and personal rings tightened around the Deir Yassin affair. Members of Mapam in the upper levels of Haganah and the intelligence service, who, like others, exploited the incidents at Deir Yassin in their political struggles, felt obligated to their version, and could not withdraw from it. For years after 1948 they continued cultivating this version and added layers and versions to it. Already on April 16, a week after the incidents at Deir Yassin, the Haganah magazine Bamahaneh published an article "Deir Yassin And Its Shame", authored by "Avraham" Meir Payil's nickname in Haganah in Jerusalem. 228 The head of the national command center, Yisrael Galili, a Mapam leader and member of its defense committee, was the one who determined what was published in Bamahaneh. 229 Shimon Monita has said: "After many years I was informed that the head of the intelligence service, Isser Bari, and Yitzhak (Izzy) Roth, a senior intelligence service staff member, received the report that I wrote about the incidents in Deir Yassin. Ben Gurion knew the truth. In the 1950s, when I was an aide to Teddy Kollek for Arab affairs in the prime minister's office, I had a meeting with Ben Gurion, at my request, for a personal conversation. But when he heard what I wanted to discuss, he told me he did not want to talk about Deir Yassin. I think that he knew that I would tell him the truth… He wanted the image of "the brutal Jews" to remain and he thought that this represented a secret weapon of the first caliber, a deterrent factor, an atom bomb. In my view, he viewed published stories about Deir Yassin as a psychological weapon that did tremendous service for us. Meir Payil and Menachem Begin never answered my requests to meet with them about this matter." 230 In order to neutralize the continuing damage that the Deir Yassin affair caused to Israeli public relations abroad, the Israeli foreign ministry issued a booklet on this topic (on March 16, 1969, for the use of Israeli representatives abroad.) This was an attempt to prove that most of the published stories about Deir Yassin were incorrect. 231 In 1971 Knesset Member Menachem Begin published in the London Times a reply to an article critical of Etzel, that was published in the newspaper. He mentioned the abovementioned booklet of the foreign ministry, and even quoted some excerpts from it. Yitzhak Levy, former head of the Jerusalem intelligence service, warned Begin in a letter against "continuing to spread the untrustworthy version about the matter of Deir Yassin to the Israeli public, because then there will be no escape from raising the matter publicly, and the responsibility for that will fall on you." Yitzhak Levy sent copies of this letter to prime minister Golda Meir, to defense minister Moshe Dayan, to foreign minister Abba Eban and to other people. 232 Eleven days later, Begin published an article in Ma'ariv in which he advised Yitzhak Levy to publish his version in The Times. 233 On April 18, 1971, six days after Levy sent his letter to Begin, the director general of the foreign ministry, Gideon Rafael, wrote to Shaul Avigur, "the man behind the scenes" in Mapai: "I would like to comment on your letter to me regarding Deir Yassin and the reliance of Knesset Member Begin on the foreign ministry's background paper on the topic. It will definitely interest you to know that the fact is I have archived this background paper, and I have asked that it not be used.." 234 On May 10, 1971, foreign minister Abba Eban informed minister Yisrael Galili, in an official letter, that the abovementioned booklet was nothing more than a publication for public relations purposes, "designated solely and exclusively for present needs, to aid public relations claims abroad. The publication is already not in use, and is not considered as a document by any figure in the foreign ministry." 235 The author attests that even in 1987 the concern of some individuals filling official posts regarding an investigation into the affair had not decreased, and pressures were exerted on him not to examine it to its foundations. Insights The Deir Yassin affair shows first of all how manipulations, conspiracies and myths create historic watersheds. The battle for Deir Yassin reveals the difficulties of battles in built up areas and of their difficult results from a human perspective. The way this battle was turned into a myth of a massacre prevented its deeper investigation and the drawing of conclusions. This is one of the reasons that the IDF arrived at similar battles unprepared, even to the operation in Jenin in Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 and even to the Second Lebanon War in 2006. The Deir Yassin affair exposes the disturbed relations between political parties of the early Jewish settlement in the period prior to establishment of the state of Israel, and their readiness to exploit military events to political party objectives. In particular the affair exposes David Ben Gurion's building negative myths upon his political rivals, that were almost impossible to appeal. Ben Gurion and his comrades brainwashed the Jews of Palestine with the aid of these myths and created a defense sub-culture. The Deir Yassin affair exposes the complex ties between the political establishment and the defense establishment, and the fact that the defense establishment is an arm of the political establishment for advancing political party interests. So, political party norms have penetrated the defense establishment and have prevented the state of Israel from creating a professional army deserving of the name. The Deir Yassin affair shows the difficulty of investigating myths and exposing them to refutation, even in a democratic country like Israel. The Deir Yassin affair exposes the characters of the Israeli historians that functioned in this affair as "recruited historians", who do not deserve their positions as academic staff and intellectuals. The Deir Yassin affair shows the characters of people in the Israeli media who have accepted the official manipulative version and have not investigated the Deir Yassin blood libel deeply. Chapter Two The Massacre Of The Hadassah Convoy The incitement against Etzel and Lehi, following the Deir Yassin affair, influenced the Arabs of east Jerusalem to go out and take revenge: to massacre four days later physicians and nurses who were traveling on April 13 in a convoy to Mt. Scopus. The desire to massacre stemmed from the incitement. The ability to massacre stemmed from oversights in Haganah. The heads of Haganah and the heads of the Jewish settlement who had developed a culture of not taking responsibility, blamed the British for the success of the massacre. Research reveals that if all the passengers in the convoy had not been massacred, this would have been due to the British who even offered their help at the first stage of the affair, but received no answer. At the beginning of the twentieth century, on the peak of Mt. Scopus, stood the summer home of Sir. John Grey Hill, a British attorney, and an adherent of the idea of return to Zion. Sir John would spend Easter in this home. In 1914 negotiations for the purpose of selling the home began with the Palestine office of the Zionist Federation. After Hill's death the home was purchased from his heirs, in 1916, by the head of the Palestine office, Arthur Ruppin. On the 9th of Av 5578 (1919) the corner stone for the home of Hebrew University was put in place. The University opened its doors on April 1,1925. In 1921, Chaim Weizman and Albert Einstein established a committee to raise funds for establishment of a medical/scientific center in Palestine, and in 1924 these funds helped acquire land on Mt. Scopus, not far from the University. The Jewish American women's organization Hadassah obligated itself to establish the center. There were divided opinions. Representing the University, Yehuda Magnes demanded that the medical center be established near the University. Representing Hadassah, Dr. Efraim Bluestone, demanded it be established within the population that it was supposed to serve. His rationale: "It is more important for a patient to see a doctor than a landscape. A partition should not be set up between a patient and a physician, and geographical distance is an intolerable partition." Dr. Yehuda Magnes, a pacifist who believed in the brotherhood of nations and was one of the founders of "Brit Shalom" a , won this argument, and the corner stone for the medical center was put in place in October 1934 on Mr. Scopus, which was populated by Arabs. The hospital opened in May 1939, and on that day two babies were born there. Mt. Scopus was the university and medical center of Palestine in the 1940s. b Among the university's teachers and Hadassah physicians, and even more among the students, were many members of Haganah. However, it wasn't they that gave the university it's tone, but the men of the "Brit Shalom" organization: Dr. Magnes and the professors Martin Buber and Moshe Shavaba who were it's leaders. They believed that the Arabs certainly would not harm this stronghold of moderate Zionism and the medical center. There was also a Haganah base on Mt. Scopus that represented a Jewish enclave within the Arab surroundings, and the road that led to it passed through the Arab neighborhood Sheikh Jarach. The British were not interested in the mountain far from the city, and Haganah exploited this, organizing training and courses on this base. Mt. Scopus was considered an independent zone (number 11) in Haganah, and it's commander, Yehoshua Ben Yeshaya was directly subordinate to the district commander. As the war approached this zone was very well fortified, but there was no continuous line of Jewish neighborhoods between it and Hebrew Jerusalem. And there was no paved highway bypassing Sheikh Jarach. The Haganah district command center used the mountain as a base for attacks on Arab neighborhoods and on Arab transportation in north Jerusalem. Already on November 30, 1947 shots were fired from an ambush against an ambulance that was traveling to Hadassah. On January 2, 1948 a Jewish bus that was traveling to Mt. Scopus was fired on in Sheikh Jarach, and Hannah Gardi, a student of the nursing school was killed. On January 20the commander of the Jerusalem district, Yisrael Amir, reported to Ben Gurion: "Sheikh Jarach is on the road to the university. This is Nashashvi's neighborhood and the homes of the Mufti and Antonius. The Arab gunfire reaches Shmuel Ha Navi Street and Beit Yisrael. The Arab residents have left Sheikh Jarach, but the gangs have entered the abandoned houses. There have been difficulties in internal transportation in the city. The removal of Arab Romema allowed things to ease up, but two roads are still in danger: to the university and Hadassah, and to Talpiot, Ramat Rachel, and Makor Hayim." Again in February, in Sheikh Jarach, a (Jewish) bus that was traveling to Hadassah was attacked and nine passengers were wounded. The driver, who was wounded seriously in the stomach, continued driving the bus to Mt. Scopus. Aryeh Hirsh, a staff member in the technical department of Hadassah hospital reported four other incidents: "On the morning of March 8 two busses left for Mt. Scopus, one of them went over a mine across from the 'Antonius House'. The Arabs fired from an ambush on the two buses and killed Efraim Ben Yosef, who worked in building and in fortifications…The drivers took the busses up to Mt. Scopus. There were no more wounded. On that day in the afternoon shots were fired in Sheikh Jarach on a truck that was transporting building materials. The truck stopped and the driver fled on foot. Two trucks of 'Solel Boneh' rescued the stalled truck, gunshots were fired at the rescuers, and one of them Elimelech Shulman, was killed. On March 11 shots were fired in Sheikh Jarach on a convoy that was transporting physicians and nurses and university employees. No one was hurt. On March 17 gunshots were fired at a convoy at the same place. Two Haganah men that accompanied the convoy, Yosef Pinto and Moshe Giat, were wounded. British army units, that were present there, did not get involved." 2 In the battle over Wadi Joz, that took place on February 26 (in the Carmel operation), units of Haganah came to Sheikh Jarach from Mt. Scopus. That day shots were fired from there on a convoy that was transporting weapons and ammunition to Mt. Scopus. One armored car went completely out of service and two of its passengers were killed. The Arabs burned the stalled armored car and abused the corpses. 3 In all of these incidents Arabs fired at Jewish vehicles in Sheikh Jarach. The British who were present near the place of the attack on the Arab side, did not get involved, and Haganah also did not activate a force at the time of the incidents. This was also so on April 13. The heads of the British government and the army commanders who were friendly with the university teachers and with the Hadassah physicians, had a positive attitude toward the Jewish transportation to Mt. Scopus, and until March the British army protected the convoys that went up to the mountain. A report that Hadassah hospital's director, Dr. Chaim Yaski wrote, attested that five convoys came up to the mountain every day. The report also states that at the beginning of March responsibility for the transportation passed to Haganah, since on account of the evacuation of their forces from Palestine, the units of the British army in Jerusalem had thinned out, and since then "there is disorder in the transportation." 4 In the afternoon of March 2, the receptionist of the medical center received a notice in Arabic: the hospital will be bombed in another hour. This was a false warning. In the middle of March the commander of the Arab Jerusalem district, Abed El Khader El Husseini, told journalists: "The Jews are destroying our homes and killing our women and children from their bases in the Hadassah hospital and the university. Therefore I have commanded that they be occupied and even destroyed", and he showed the journalists an artillery gun that was stationed on the roof of the Rockefeller Museum, aimed to Mt. Scopus. He also declared his intention to strike vehicles that came up to Mt. Scopus. On the day of his death in the battle over Castel, in Operation Nachshon, in his pocket were found lists of plans for occupying the mountain. The Arabs did not conceal their intentions. But it seems that the ones responsible for Jewish defense did not relate to them with complete seriousness. The surgeon, Prof. Edward Jozef, notified the director of Hadassah Dr. Yasik in a letter that he did not accept responsibility for transferring patients to Mt. Scopus, and Dr. Yasik replied: "the time has still not come for evacuating Mt. Scopus, and there is no security in any other place." But he also feared for the fate of the patients, and in a report to the treasurer of the Jewish Agency, Eliezer Kaplan, (on March 19 a) he stated: "(In the hospital) today are close to two hundred fifty patients. Among them more than eighty wounded and the rest badly afflicted with various illnesses. These patients need a significant number of medical workers and provisions, and it is not possible to supply this unless normal transportation exists with the city." He wrote that if there isn't a continuous line of transportation to the hospital, its activity will be diminished, "and this will badly harm the possibility of hospitalization in Jerusalem, it will weaken the position of Mt. Scopus, and deal a psychological blow to the Jewish public in America in general and to Hadassah circles in particular, because they will understand that this reduction is but the beginning of elimination…Until the beginning of May few days remain, and we are commanded to plan for any possibility. I very much want to avoid taking measures that are liable to induce depression in the workers and patients, and in this to aid the enemy in the war of nerves." 5 Yasik sent copies of this letter to Ben Gurion, to Dr. Magnes and to six other recipients. On March 22 the heads of Hadassah discussed evacuation of Mt. Scopus but decided to continue, for the time being, with regular activity, and to warn the settlement institutions that if the problem of transportation to the mountain was not solved, the hospital would be transferred to another place. Dr. Yasik paid for this decision with his life: mid May was not the critical date for Mt. Scopus, but mid April. A Righteous Man's Warning On February 28, Yosef Shani, chief liaison officer of Haganah, met with the commander of British forces in the region, Brigadier Jones a, in the British command center that was located in the German Colony. "The Arabs are attacking the vehicles traveling to Mt. Scopus because they think that Haganah is transferring weapons and military equipment there", Jones said to Yosef Shani, and promised him that if Jewish convoys are attacked in Sheikh Jarach the British will fire on the attackers. Such orders, said Jones, had been sent to the commander of the battalion located in North Jerusalem, Lt. Col. McCloud. On March 2, Jones again promised Jozef Shani that the British will maintain order on the way to Mt. Scopus, and he asked that Haganah not initiate an incident in the north of the city or near Atarot or Neve Yakov, and not fire mortars from Mt. Scopus to Wadi Joz. He added that the Arabs agree to this arrangement. Shani assured: that Haganah will preserve the peace, if the British will guard over the Arab actions. 6 Haganah kept Shani's assurance for only two days. Already on March 4, Noam Grossman and his soldiers went out to El Jib junction in the area of Ramallah in order to strike Arab vehicles. This was Operation "Shmuel" that was aimed to be a reply to the attacks on Hebrew transportation throughout the country, mainly on the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem road. Grossman and fifteen of his soldiers were killed. Arab vehicles were not harmed in Operation Shmuel. But the district heated up. 7 At the end of March it was already recognized that it was very hard to move convoys through Arab territory, and it was even harder to rescue the attacked convoys. One of the convoys that failed, "The Atarot Convoy" got caught in Shuafat, not far from the road to Mt. Scopus on March 24. David Shaltiel b and the district headquarters did not draw conclusions. In a report from the beginning of April, the intelligence officer for north Jerusalem, Moshe Diskin, whose underground nickname was "Tzadik" (i.e. righteous man) wrote that the convoy to Mt. Scopus was encountering danger and that it was desirable "to organize our own police and military vehicles, that will be able to rescue people and vehicles that get stuck at the time of attack, in this place, or in a place of similar composition, by our people, dressed as policemen or soldiers." 8 Dr. Yasik and university president Dr. Magnes exerted pressure and Ben Gurion ordered Shaltiel in a telegram on March 31: "Make every effort to secure an armored car three or four times a day, from 7:00 AM until 4:00 PM to Hadassah hospital." 9 That did not happen in reality. Already in mid-January 1948 studies at the university had stopped. Most of the students were recruited into Haganah, and the university laboratories served the unit of the Jerusalem science corps, headed by Dr. Aharon Kachleski (Katzir). The commander of Mt. Scopus, Yehoshua Ben Yeshaya, established a standard of eighty persons for the Haganah positions on the mountain. The Haganah headquarters in Jerusalem and the university officers manned the positions in rotating watch, over teachers and workers that were not recruited into Haganah and who still had not reached age 50. Staff members in Katzir's unit (the science corps) were released from guard duty. Some teachers, who were older than 50, also volunteered to stand in positions. One of them was a Professor of Botany, who was killed on April 13, in the Mt. Scopus convoy, on the way to fulfill his watch. There were also teachers that did not fulfill this obligation. Even though their age was less than 50. The university established a small committee to verify that staff in the humanities were bearing the minor yoke that was imposed on them. 10 With the knowledge of Haganah, the heads of the university and Hadassah conducted negotiations with the British on paving a security road between Mt. Scopus and Hebrew Jerusalem, north of Sheikh Jarach. On March 12 the British presented three conditions to them: the Jews will bear the costs of paving the road, they will undertake the work and will provide security for the workers. These conditions seemed too harsh to the heads of the Jewish settlement, and the road was not paved. Already in April the Hadassah departments were operating by a method of improvisation. Hayim Ranan director of the office for receiving patients, was the hospital commander on behalf of Haganah. Ranan purchased from workers in the nearby British hospital, Augusta Victoria, military winter coats, motors for recharging batteries (generators), gasoline and ammunition. There were many blackouts on the mountain and the telephone line to Hebrew Jerusalem frequently broke down. Some departments of the hospital moved to the Hebrew city. Dr. Yasik acquired a building on Neviim St that was previously a Scottish hospital and an institution of the Mission, and Hadassah staff prepared it as a medical center. In the beginning of April most of the Hadassah departments had already moved to the Hebrew city, and Dr. Yasik also moved there. He traveled with his wife to Mt. Scopus on April 13, in order to bring medical equipment and personal effects back to the city. Even though (from the beginning of March) the British already were not providing close security to the convoys that came up to Mt. Scopus, British armored cars patrolled the road that led to the mountain every day. On March 9 a British military unit located itself at the abandoned Antonius House in Sheikh Jarach, and established a position there, to provide security for the Jewish convoys. 11 The Arabs Also Have Dissidents After occupation of Castel, Operation Nachshon, occupation of Deir Yassin and Colonia near Hebrew Motza, and the death of Abed El Khader El Husseini, for the first ten days of April, the Jews in Jerusalem had the upper hand. However, on account of the incitement of the Jewish settlement heads and Haganah commanders against Etzel and Lehi over the Deir Yassin affair, it was expected that the Arabs would organize a reprisal action and seek to avenge with a real massacre the massacre that did not happen. It was not difficult to surmise in advance that the blow would be against a convoy. The experience from the first four months of the war had already taught that the roads are the weak link in the Jewish arrangement of things. 12 From mid-March, Asher (Zizi) Rahav (Rabinovich) was commander of the convoys that went up to Mt. Scopus. After April 9 his soldiers detected signs of disquiet on the road to Mt. Scopus. Rahav reported to Shimshon Bar Noy, commander of his company a, about reduced Arab vehicle traffic, in the section between the Jewish neighborhoods and the mountain, and he said that this was a bad sign. He did not receive instructions about the matter. 13 Captain G.S. b an intelligence man in the British army command center, who was in charge of collecting intelligence material in Jerusalem, claimed after the war, that any thinking person could have guessed that the Arabs would take revenge on the Jews for the massacre in Deir Yassin, and would strike them in their soft underbelly. G.S. cooperated with the Haganah intelligence service and the political department of the Jewish Agency. According to his testimony, the men of British army intelligence told the army commanders in Jerusalem that the Arabs will definitely attack a Jewish convoy in Sheikh Jarach. 14 On April 10 Arabs blew up a pipe that carried water from French Hill to Mt. Scopus. British soldiers provided security for technical staff from Hadassah that repaired the pipe. Major Jack Churchill, a Scot who was responsible on behalf of the army for providing security to the Jewish convoys and the Arabs in Jerusalem, was present for the pipe repair, and Yosef Shani has testified that "he was very pleasant and took medical supplies to the city in his car." 15 On April 11, Rahav outwitted the Arabs and left with a convoy, not at 9:00 AM as usual, but at 11:00 AM. There were no mishaps on the way, but Rahav and his soldiers "smelled something about to happen", even though they could not point to any particular sign. After the convoy reached Mt. Scopus British and Jewish representatives met in Hadassah hospital: These included Brigadier Jones, Major Churchill and the commanders of the British brigade that was located in the Jerusalem area; university president Dr. Magnes, the medical director of Hadassah, Dr. Eli Davis, and Prof. Avraham Reifenberg, a man of the university and Haganah intelligence service,. Dr. Magnes asked if the Red Cross would provide its protection to the medical center, and brigadier Jones told him: "One cannot rely on the Arabs, they also have dissidents for whom cease fire agreements are not obligatory. To our good fortune the road to Mt. Scopus is quiet, for now." Major Churchill warned the Jews that sniper fire from the Beit Yisrael neighborhood against Arabs is liable to heat up the area and provoke a reprisal action. It was agreed that the next convoy will come up to Mt. Scopus in two days, on April 13. 16 On that same day Yosef Shani gave his commanders a report about this meeting. Don't Send The Fur On April 13, at 9:00 AM the Hadassah convoy left for Mt. Scopus from the Hadassah clinic on Hasolel St. Only people whose jobs obligated them for this were permitted to travel in the convoy, and nevertheless people were included who traveled to visit family members and for other personal reasons. On Hasolel St. the numerous passengers packed themselves into two armored busses, one of which was designated for Hadassah employees and one for university employees. Around forty people crowded on each bus. On the way to Beit Yisrael two ambulances joined them, along with three trucks that were transporting supplies and building materials for the fortifications, and two armored cars. A total of more than one hundred people traveled in the Hadassah convoy, in nine vehicles. The last stop of the convoy in Jewish territory was by "Tipat Halav" on Shmuel Hanavi St. in Beit Yisrael. At the head of the convoy was an armored car commanded by Asher Rahav, and it carried five soldiers and two hitchhikers. After it came in file: a small ambulance with twelve passengers, including Dr. Yasik, his wife and a wounded person on the stretcher; a larger ambulance carrying two drivers, two patients and some doctors and nurses; two busses; three trucks; and an auxiliary armored car with six soldiers. There was no communications equipment in the convoy, even though the use of communications equipment was widespread in convoys that traveled out of the city. The operations officer of the Etzioni brigade, Tzion Eldad, sent the convoy on its way, and was certain that nothing bad would happen to it; he even permitted his sister Hava, who served in a Haganah unit on Mt. Scopus, to travel on the convoy. No information had reached Etzioni brigade about the intention of the Arabs to take revenge over Deir Yassin, and no plan was ready to rescue the convoy if attacked. Two of Abed El Khader El Husseini's commanders – Muhamad Abed El Sajer, and Abdul Abed Latuf- planted a mine on the road in the Sheikh Jarach neighborhood and organized the ambush From their observation post men of Haganah saw suspicious movement in Sheikh Jarach at 9:15 AM. The convoy had already reached its station near "Tipat Halav." A report was sent from the observation post to the district commander: "Arabs have installed armored windows with apertures in the house that stands between Beit Nashashivi and the unfinished house, to the left of the road." The men of the observation post proposed that the commander look through the large binoculars and check if machine guns have been positioned in the window. The regional intelligence officer proposed that Rahav supervise the house. After the disaster the intelligence officer said that he had no authority to hold back the convoy, "particularly since in recent days convoys had not stopped by 'Tipat Halav' for the purpose of receiving latest information about security on the road, because there was an arrangement with the army and the police." 17 Moshe Hilman, the liaison person with the British in north Jerusalem and a friend of the police commander in Mea Shearim, inspector Robert Webb, stood at the road block by "Tipat Halav." Hilman aided Webb in meeting his Jewish lover, and even gave her a fur coat, as compensation for the services that Webb provided to Haganah. Webb and his subordinates would patrol the road, before the departure of the convoys, and report on their findings to Hilman, before they would give the convoy commanders final approval to enter Arab territory. On April 13 a British police sergeant notified Hilman that the road was all right. Hilman was not satisfied with this information, he phoned Webb and asked for his approval also. According to the report that "Tzadik" the intelligence officer wrote after some time Webb told Hilman that "the road is all right." In that report it is also written that Hilman had received the notice about suspicious activity in Sheikh Jarach from the observation post. But Hilman has related to the author that Webb warned him in their phone conversation but that he did not understood the warning: "Today don't send the fur", and Hilman thought that his friend was talking about an additional fur for his lover and was somewhat amazed – after all the young woman already received a fur coat – but he was not inclined to think that perhaps there was some hidden clue in the words of the police commander. He gave the convoy approval to depart, and when he understood his mistake it was already too late. 18 A Dreadful Trap The silence of death hung over Sheikh Jarach. "I had a feeling that we were traveling into a dreadful trap. The road was empty and abandoned", Rahav related years later, "I thought that perhaps it is worthwhile to return, but I did not do anything, and there also was no room for the vehicles to turn around. I said to myself, another moment and we will pass the nightmare, and then it started." In a report of the Haganah investigating committee from 1948 it states: "When the convoy entered the Sheikh Jarach neighborhood, one of the physicians noticed that the large ambulance (third vehicle in the convoy)…was at a low position of sand bags to the left of the road, at the turn to Shimon Hatzadik or a little before it – a position that he and the ambulance driver thought was new. The passengers in the freight trucks even sensed movement of armed Arabs in the vicinity." 19 At 9:40 AM the leading armored car of Rahav reached the area of the disturbance. Across from the unfinished house they saw piles of ashes on the road, and Rahav ordered the driver to bypass it. The driver was imprecise, he only veered a little and the left wheel of the armored car went over a mine. The armored car was thrown to the left side of the road. And then all at once there was strong gunfire against the whole convoy. The driver of the small ambulance (second in line) lost his calm, veered to the left of the road and got stuck in a ditch. The large ambulance, three trucks and the auxiliary armored car got out of the gunfire trap: some turned around, some traveled in reverse gear, and all returned to the Hebrew city. 20 Some of the passengers were wounded, but their lives were saved. In the area struck by gunfire eight people remained in the leading armored car, twelve people in the small ambulance, that was five meters from the armored car, and around eighty people in the two busses, that were stuck around one hundred fifty meters from the armored car. There was one machine gun in the armored car, one "Tommy gun" sub-machinegun, Czech rifles and grenades. There was a single pistol in the ambulance, belonging to Dr. Yasik. No soldiers were seated in the busses. From testimony gathered afterward it emerged that there were two or three privately owned pistols, and these were all the weapons they had. Later Rahav justified the escape of the four civilian vehicles, and said: "It is a pity the others did not escape", and on the other hand expressed amazement over the flight of the auxiliary armored car: "In my view it was incumbent on its commander to advance and see how he could provide aid." 21 The Jerusalem district headquarters received the first report from the head of the Arab intelligence service, Yitzhak Navon, at 9:50 AM: "The medical convoy to Hadassah has been attacked in the Nashashivi neighborhood." The second report was received ten minutes later: "Two busses and one ambulance are standing a little below the Nashashivi neighborhood. It seems they cannot continue, because of strong gunfire." And at 10:15: "The busses and the ambulance are standing in Sheikh Jarach, there are exchanges of fire. There is a convoy of vehicles of the Legion at the place." 22 Eliahu Arbel was the officer on duty at the Jerusalem district headquarters on the night between April 12 and 13, and he was about to conclude his watch at 10:00 AM. When Arbel reported about the night and daylight events to his replacement, Tzion Eldar, the reports of Yitzhak Navon reached the headquarters, and Arbel sent them to David Shaltiel, who was then standing by Shneller Camp and received the large supply convoy from the lowland area. Arbel and Shaltiel both thought that this was a "normal" incident, but when the additional information arrived Shaltiel ordered Arbel to travel to Beit Yisrael and see from up close "what could be done." 23 Arabs poured into Sheikh Jarach from every side. Most of the gunfire assaulted Rahav's armored car. Its armor plate was of soft tin, and a screen covered it to prevent the penetration of grenades. The bullets penetrated through the tin and the screen. Passengers were struck. Rifles were no longer useful. Bullets did not penetrate the ambulance, busses or the armored cars, and the passengers believed that the Haganah soldiers would push back the attackers in a little while. At a distance of one hundred meters before Rahav's armored car stood two British armored cars and provided security on the road for the convoy of the British army commander, General Macmillan, who passed beside Sheikh Jarach on his way from Jerusalem to the airport near Atarot (Kalandia). It appeared to Rahav that the British soldiers sitting in these armored cars were aiding the attackers and firing on the convoy. He commanded the machine gunner, Baruch Nussbaum, to fire at them. Nussbaum fired and the British returned fire. Macmillan wrote afterward to Dr. Magnes: "There was gunfire against us from a Jewish armored car…I assessed that the situation of the convoy is not difficult and it will be easy to rescue them if the Jewish armored car holds fire." Macmillan and his convoy traveled on their way, and the two British armored cars got out of the area of the battle. As mentioned, a British platoon, commanded by the Irish Captain Faulkner, was located at "Antonius House" In the investigating committee report it states: "The men of this platoon acted against the attackers. But from lack of heavy equipment they could not influence the fighting, and their involvement was without decisive results for the ones attacked." British intelligence man, Captain G.S., a friend of the Jews, was then located in the Notre Dame monastery, and a British unit was also located there. When he was informed about what was happening, he traveled to Sheikh Jarach, in a small vehicle with a driver and aide, passed by the convoy, bypassed to the right the crater that had opened in the road beside Rahav's disabled armored car and went into Antonius House. Afterward he related that he saw that the Jewish armored car was waving a white cloth, a sign of surrender, but the Arabs intensified the gunfire, and Faulkner and his soldiers, who until then did nothing, became annoyed and fired at the Arabs with all the guns at their disposal. G. S. reported via the communications equipment to British army headquarters in the King David Hotel, about the situation of the convoy. According to his testimony, an order was sent from headquarters to the British soldiers that manned the position in the Mea Shearim neighborhood, to launch three inch mortar shells against the Arabs that were pouring into Sheikh Jarach. The blows were precise. Many Arabs were struck and many withdrew. 24 Jews fired weapons from Mt. Scopus and neighborhoods near Sheikh Jarach, using rifles, machine guns and mortars – at the approximate positions of the Arabs, in order to pin them down and interfere with their attacking the trapped vehicles. But this gunfire bore no influence. It is reasonable to assume that it struck Jews and endangered the British. There is no doubt that it did not provide the British with a reason or a pretext not to get involved. But the British demanded that the Jews cease the ineffective firing, and they informed them that this was a condition for their involvement. We Must Act The head of the Jerusalem intelligence service, Yitzhak Levy, has related: "The explosions and gunfire against the convoy in Sheikh Jarach were like the outbreak of a volcano. I understood that something dreadful had happened. I jumped in a car and traveled to Shmuel Ha Navi Street. There I met the last vehicles of the convoy that returned from Sheikh Jarach. I questioned the people, I went up to a rooftop and I watched what was happening. When I understood that the convoy was trapped I ordered the area commander to bring up a machine gun onto the roof, and to fire at both sides of the trapped bus, so that the Arabs will not approach it. I traveled to Shneller Camp and I brought another machine gun from there, afterward I traveled to see Shaltiel. I told him that two busses, an ambulance and an armored car are trapped, and we must rescue them immediately, otherwise all the people will be killed. "Shaltiel told me that there were negotiations with the British and that they would rescue the convoy. I told him that the people are liable to be killed at any moment, and we must not wait. I proposed sending a company to break through to Sheikh Jarach. Shaltiel replied that my suggestion was tantamount to suicide and that he believed the British would rescue them. I left from there disappointed and angry, after five minutes I returned to him and I said shouting that we must act. He replied: "Eliahu Arbel is dealing with this, go to him. 25 At 10:30 AM Hilman informed Tziion Eldar by telephone from "Tipat Halav": 'It's already three quarters of an hour since we asked for help for the convoy, and it (the help) has not arrived, the situation is very bad'. After five minutes he phoned the district headquarters of Yithak Navon: 'they are requesting heavy weapons from Sheikh Jarach, because with the rifles they cannot overcome the gunfire." Moshe Solomon, company commander in the Moriah battalion, who was responsible for north Jerusalem, wrote in his diary on that morning that he suddenly heard explosions and gunfire, and understood that the convoy was under attack. "I immediately ordered the men to prepare themselves, even before the order would come. We were prepared in time, with two armored cars." Dov Doron from the Moriah battalion has related that he and his comrades received an order to organize themselves in anticipation of a breakthrough on foot to Sheikh Jarach and we prepared weapons and equipment, but the order to break through did not come. When they asked why, the commander of the company, Yosef Nebo a answered, that the British were threatening to shell the Jews with artillery and mortars if they break into Sheikh Jarach. 26 According to Yitzhak Levy, Nebo told him that he had prepared a force to break into Sheikh Jarach but the district headquarters had forbidden the force from breaking through. The deputy commander of Moriah battalion, Tzvi Sinai, has related that Nadav Weisman, a battalion intelligence officer, came running to the battalion headquarters and said that it seems that the convoy is under attack. Sinai jumped into his car, traveled close to Sheikh Jarach, went up to a high roof and saw what was happening. He returned to the battalion headquarters. Since he understood that two armored cars would not rescue the convoy, he asked Moshe Solomon to wait and traveled to Shneller Camp to ask Shaltiel for reinforcements. There the head of the intelligence service, Yitzhak Levy, convinced him to ask Mishal Shaham b to send the "Nachshon convoy" escort (a supply convoy that came from Hulda) to rescue the convoy trapped in Sheikh Jarach. Shaltiel also requested this, but Shaham refused to allocate armored cars for the rescue and he claimed that he had to immediately return the trucks and the armored cars to the low land area – that was the order he had received, and it was unequivocal. After bargaining and pleading Shaham agreed to send one armored car, and along with Shalitiel asked for the armored car from the lead platoon of the Nachshon Convoy, Baruch Gilboa's. 27 Most of the Nachshon Convoy escort had already gone to the city, in order to eat and rest. Only fifteen remained with Gilboa, to guard the armored cars. Not all of the fifteen knew each other. Gilboa has related: "Some big fellows approached me – Shaltiel, Shaham and their entourage – and they asked for the armored car commander…"The gang pointed at me. Shaltiel said to me, 'There has been a disaster and there is a massacre on the road to Mt. Scopus. The Arabs are killing physicians, professors and nurses. We must collect a force in order to rescue them immediately. There is no precise information about what is happening there but this is a disaster'. I told him two things: "I must receive an authorized order from the commander to whom I am subordinate, and I don't know the road to Mt. Scopus. He answered: 'I will get in touch with the high commander in Tel Aviv and you will receive an appropriate order'. Afterward he went away for some time, and I continued standing in the street beside the armored cars. When he returned he said, 'I have an order, gather your men in one armored car and depart." 28 Shaltiel intended to send three armored cars to Sheikh Jarach, commanded by Tzvi Sinai. But Moshe Solomon traveled there with two armored cars of the Moriah battalion even before the negotiations between Shaltiel and Gilboa had concluded. So Shaltiel sent Sinai to guide Gilboa's armored car. Twelve men, members of Palmach and the field corps (the Haganah combat force) sat in Gilboa's armored car, but only Tzvi Sinai knew the road to Sheikh Jarach, and where the convoy was trapped. Solomon's armored cars entered Sheikh Jarach at 10:45 AM, under heavy gunfire. The first armored car of Solomon reached the trapped bus, gave hope, continued to travel and reached Rahav's armored car. "I instantly saw this was a trap", wrote Solomon in his diary, "In any case I ordered the driver to pass on the right, on the terrace on which the road was built. I was concerned we would turn over. I had two wounded. I decided to put them out (on Mt. Scopus). On the mountain it emerged we had three flat tires and the brakes were faulty." 29 At 11:15 AM Joel Malkov, the commander on Mt. Scopus, reported to the district headquarters: "The second armored car (Solomon's) has passed through and reached the university, request you send a police style armored car." 30 Shots were fired at the second armored car. Some of its passengers were struck, and the driver turned it back to the city. Then Gilboa's armored car reached Sheikh Jarach with Tzvi Sinai, went over a mine and was disabled between Rahav's disabled armored car and the disabled ambulance of Yasik. A bullet struck Sinai in the head. He did not lose consciousness, but he ceased to function. The men in Gilboa's armored car that were not struck, and in Rahav's armored car, fired in the direction of the Arabs that tried to approach and also fired along the road in the direction of the ambulance and the busses in order to keep the attackers from reaching them. 31 We Will Wait For Haganah To Rescue Us The Scottish Major, Jack Churchill was receiving a formation of three companies in the courtyard of the German Hospice St. Paulus, around a kilometer from the place of the incident, when he received the first report from Sheikh Jarach. Churchill left the formation, traveled in an armored car to the place of the incident, returned to his command post, and asked his commander to allocate a unit of armored cars and three inch mortars to undertake a rescue. He received an armored car platoon, but he did not receive permission to use the mortars. So, at 10:30 AM, organizing of the armored car platoon continued for a long time, but Churchill did not wait. He organized a private rescue mission. He traveled with his soldiers to Sheikh Jarach in an armored car and an army truck. Under fire, he reached the disabled bus on which the Hadassah employees were sitting, and offered to let them move to the truck. The passage from the bus to the truck was dangerous. "Can you guarantee our lives?" the passengers on the bus asked him. In the report of the investigating committee it states that Churchill replied: "This is dependent on a risk of fifty percent." Attorney Shalom Horowitz, who compiled the report, has written: "It seems that at this early hour, and in expectation of more effective assistance that would come quickly, the passengers did not agree to accept the risk of leaving the armored bus and moving into the vehicle of the Major, which seems to have been only partially armored." The Major shouted, "If you remain here, surely all of you will be killed!" One of the nurses answered him: "But we are completely all right!" "Not for long you'll be all right!", shouted Churchill, who was exposed to gunfire. "Why don't your soldiers throw the Arabs out?" protested one of the trapped passengers. "We will wait here for Haganah to rescue us", said one. Churchill also proposed that the university staff who were sitting on the other bus move to the truck, and they also rejected his assistance. One of his soldiers was wounded by a bullet in the neck, and Churchill who was astonished by the refusals of the Jews, left them, and traveled with the wounded soldier to the hospital. 32 Later, Major Churchill said to the journalist playwright Michael Almaz: "Until April 13 the Haganah liaison people reported to me about every convoy to Mt. Scopus, and I took pains to have many soldiers present in Sheikh Jarach. On April 13 they did not report. That's why the disaster happened." Already No Chance Baruch Ben Anat, deputy commander of a Palmach platoon, was then in Shneller Camp. His friend, Nadav Weisman, the intelligence officer of the Moriah battalion, brought him to the observation post and showed him the convoy. When asked, later, why he did not try to aid the trapped passengers, Ben Anat replied: "I don't determine. What they told me, that I did. Nadav told me, 'what a pity for everyone that they sent there, there is already no chance'." Ben Anat and his soldiers received coupons for meals, they ate and went to sleep. 35 Two weeks after the disaster of the convoy, Yitzhak Ben Tzvi a, president of the National Committee postulated in a letter: "is it correct, that through all the hours of the attack no one from the Jewish Agency or other Zionist institution turned to the chief secretary or the Governor with a demand to be involved in the matter and give appropriate orders to the army commanders to be involved or to halt the massacre?... "I heard from the chief rabbi that he was prepared to turn to the Governor, if he had known what was happening that day. But he did not know what was done until a later time. "This begs the question: didn't the political department of the Jewish Agency know during seven hours any of what was happening in Sheikh Jarach? Inasmuch as Haganah operated according to information. And how is it possible that the Jewish Agency political department knew, and did not provide any announcement, not to the secretary of the national committee and not to the chief rabbinate?" 36 According to Yitzhak Levy, the staff of the political department of the Jewish Agency knew what was happening, and conducted negotiations with the British. Years later, Shaltiel wrote: "the institutions of the Jewish settlement – the Jewish Agency political department, the institutions of the university and Hadassah and Haganah liaison officers – could not motivate brigadier Jones, commander of the British army forces in Jerusalem, to halt the Arab gunfire." In his testimony before staff of the IDF historical department, Shaltiel said: "there was a plan to rescue the convoy via an infantry force that was assembled in Shneller Camp. The force was not put into action and to the extent I remember, the consideration was the absence of practicality in such an action. The bus and the armored cars in the convoy were paralyzed without possibility of movement. The only possibility to reach there was only by tank, and there was no tank. The infantry action was not only judged a failure but also was bordering on suicide. I need to add that the British were also on the line, and they protected the Arabs and prevented us any possibility of offering aid to the people under attack." 37 This testimony does not stand up to critical scrutiny. At least an hour and a half after Rahav's armored car went over a mine, the British did not interfere with the three Jewish armored cars (two of Solomon and one of Gilboa) entering Sheikh Jarach. The British soldiers who were located in Antonius House aided the Jews with gunfire and perhaps prevented the murder of all the passengers in the convoy in the first hours of the battle. At least thirty six armored cars that escorted the Nachshon Convoy were in Jerusalem. Only one of them was sent to Sheikh Jarach. Shaltiel did not exert all possible pressure on the command center in Tel Aviv and on the Nachshon operational headquarters so that they would order Shaham to send these armored cars to rescue the Hadassah convoy. Also in Kiryat Anavim and in Ma'aleh Ha Hamisha stood armored cars of the Palmach's fourth battalion, and in Shneller Camp stood the armored cars of the convoy escort (The Forman crew) that aided Etzel on April 9 in occupying Deir Yassin and rescuing their wounded. One of the Forman crew, Gideon Sarig, was on that day in Shneller Cap. He has testified that he saw from one of the camp's roofs what was happening in Sheikh Jarach. "There was an argument whether we are going out to rescue the convoy, and Shaltiel shouted as fitting. I do not remember who was in favor and who was against. We were not put into action and it was strange to see them massacred so close to hand." 38 It is hard to understand on the basis of what Shaltiel claimed that sending infantry soldiers to Sheikh Jarach "bordered on suicide." In fighting in built up territory, infantry soldiers are preferable over armored cars, which became death traps when they encountered centralized gunfire. It is possible to surmise that the attackers of the Hadassah Convoy would not have overcome a company of infantry soldiers, if it had advanced from house to house. If Shaltiel did not prevent the certain massacre because he was worried about possible "suicide" (as his statements indicate), indeed he acted against the principles of Haganah: that its soldiers must rescue civilians encountering distress. Remember Deir Yassin At 1:00 PM, the attackers approached the two busses, assaulted them and set them on fire. Some passengers fled before then to the two armored cars and the ambulance. Only two people remained alive from all the bus passengers; Shlomo Nisim, from the Hadassah bus and Natan Sandovsky, who was sitting on the university bus. Sandovsky has related that on his bus there was one pistol and eight bullets… "Remember Deir Yassin! Avenge Deir Yassin!" the Arabs shouted. Sandovsky defended himself with a surgeon's scalpel that he held in his hand. A bullet struck the bus's gas tank. The fuel flowed out, and the Arabs threw Molotov cocktails and burning rags on it. He heard someone shouting "I am burning" and he jumped out, ran in a zig zag at the head of the road, passed by the ambulance and reached Gilboa's armored car. He struck the door with his hand and shouted, "I am one of ours!" When the door opened he saw that the armored car was filled with wounded and killed. David Bar Ner, one of the wounded, held a grenade in his hand whose pin was pulled, and he planned to blow it up before the Arabs set fire to the armored car. Sandovsky grabbed the grenade from his hand, and threw it outside, the grenade blew up. From one of two machine guns that were in the armored car Sandovsky fired short bursts at the attackers and he did not let them approach. 39 At 2:20 PM the commander of the neighborhood of Beit Yisrael reported to David Shaltiel: "The bus is burning on the road to Mt. Scopus." Five minutes later the men from one of the observation posts reported: "Two busses are burning, people are jumping out of them, they seem wounded." 40 At 2:30 PM, a bullet penetrated the driver's compartment of the ambulance and struck Dr. Yasik. There was no first aid kit in the ambulance. Yasik examined the area of the wound: the liver. He knew that he had no hope for his life, "Farewell my dear", he said to wife Fanny, and died in her arms. The ambulance driver, Zecharia Levitan, jumped out, ran in the direction of Antonius House and was killed by the strike of a bullet. Dr. Yehuda Matot, a pediatrician, reached Antonius House through crawling, even though he was wounded in his back. The British unit commander told him that he could not aid the trapped passengers, because he did not have enough men. A medic offered first aid to Dr. Matot. Nine people remained in the ambulance with no defense and they expected to die. After the busses were set on fire, an armored car commanded by Chaim Kamron, from Noam Company reached Sheikh Jarach, and was disabled in the pit that the exploded mine dug out in the road. Two of the passengers in the armored car were killed immediately, and a third was wounded. The driver got the armored car out of the pit in reverse gear and rushed forward to Mt. Scopus. This spelled the end of the last hope of the trapped passengers. Kamron related afterward that he went up, full of anger, to the roof of one of the university buildings, with a machine gun, and he fired at a nearby Arab village. Moshe Solomon's armored car came down from the mountain in the direction of Sheikh Jarach. He did not enter the area of the battle, and only picked up the survivors that fled on foot from the fire trap. 41 The British Army Is Firing At The Arabs At 2:30 PM the men of the eavesdropping unit (Arnevet) reported that they were listening to the British broadcasts: "An army of "Life Guards" has reached the place." The British had sent to Sheikh Jarach an army force with heavy weapons, and they were conducting negotiations with the Arab Jerusalem commander, the Iraqi officer, Fadel Abdallah Rashid, senior Arab commander in the Jerusalem front, after the death of Abed El Khader El Husseini. During the negotiations the attackers lessened their gunfire and did not try to approach the ambulance and the armored cars. It seems that they prolonged the negotiations only to buy time, and to kill the remaining passengers when darkness came. After they concentrated enough forces the British fired at the attackers of the convoy, and at 4:45 PM Navon reported to Shaltiel: "The British army is firing at the Arabs, and is prepared to cease fire if the Arabs will also cease their gunfire. There are many killed and wounded among the Arabs, mainly Iraqis, and there are no ambulances. Seventy minutes later Navon reported: "The battle has been halted (already) at 4:40 PM, by agreement with the British army. 42 At 5:00 PM British trucks reached the two armored cars and the ambulance and they transferred the people that remained alive to Antonius House. Under British protection, Dr. Zinger came to Hadassah Hospital, with medical equipment and gave the wounded first aid. The British officer, G.S. brought to Rahav, from Gilboa's armored car, the notes for the plans of Operation Nachshon that were in it. 43 The British offered to transport the wounded to the hospital of their choice. Sixteen of them chose Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus, and nine chose the improvised hospital that was set up in the Scottish Mission, on Ha Neviim St. All of them received medical treatment and their lives were saved. Also Tzvi Sinai, who they thought was dead, recuperated. a Thirty killed victims were counted immediately. Forty seven people were missing, and the relatives of some of them hoped that they were in Arab captivity. The corpses of most of them were found afterward, and some of them were impossible to identify. Some were burned and some were badly damaged. Regarding some of the missing there remains doubt until today. The number of corpses that were found – those that were identified and those not identified – was smaller than the number of missing. 44 Seventy two people were killed in the convoy to Mt. Scopus, among them twenty women. Batya Bass was traveling in the convoy to Hadassah Hospital in order to give birth; Shoshana Ben Ari was traveling to visit wounded friends from the Palmach unit that were hospitalized in Hadassah; Yehudit Russo was traveling to her husband; Meir Mizrachi was traveling to his relatives in Hadassah; Bruria Haver, Fritz Muzag, and Rebecca Aharonov were traveling to receive medical treatment at the hospital. These people would have stayed alive if they had been forbidden from joining the convoy. Who Pays The Price The Haganah intelligence officer for north Jerusalem wrote shortly after the disaster: "Every time that a convoy is attacked on the road, all those responsible for it are astonished. Even though it is liable to be set on fire, everyone starts running about to find men, armored cars and weapons and precious time is lost. The operation that needed to be undertaken: approach the vehicles under attack with a significant number of armored cars. Tow the vehicles or rescue their passengers…there is no doubt that among the functions of the officer in charge of the convoy is supervising the sending in of reinforcements and aid." 46 Two weeks after the disaster, Yitzhak Ben Tzvi wrote in a letter to David Ben Gurion that Shaltiel had indeed appointed "a small committee for the purpose of investigation", but "sixteen days have passed and we have not received any report from this committee. I am amazed at this slow pace regarding the abovementioned serious matter. The earlier committees, in the case of Ben Yehuda St. and the case of the institution buildings, worked as is known in a determined way and they presented their conclusions (quickly). I don’t doubt that the very delay damages the matter of public recruitment, and the continuing spiritual depression." Some days after the disaster, attorney Shalom Horowitz from the university and from Hadassah, received an appointment to investigate its circumstances. Horowitz's aide in this investigation was attorney Yitzhak Tunik. a Two university representatives, Dr. Ulitzki and Dr. Ashner, and two representatives of Hadassah, Yehudit Ginzburg and Dr. Ulman were present at every stage of the investigation. In the report of Shalom Horowitz it states that he "did not succeed in obtaining direct testimony from defense people, even though I turned to the command center in this regard." 47 And the broad remainder "did not agree to testify to me." Horowitz presented his report on May 6, 1948. Yitzhak Levy has related that Shaltiel forbid the men of the Jerusalem Haganah to appear before the Horowitz committee. 48 Haganah appointed an investigation committee of its own headed by attorney Moshe Gorali. b Three of the commanders that took part in the battle – Asher Rahav, Tzvi Sinai, and Baruch Gilboa – have related that no one asked them to give testimony to the Gorali committee, and no one interrogated them. Rahav has related that he expressed astonishment over this failure when he was lying in the hospital, and that after his recuperation he gave testimony to Chaim Herzog, a man from the Jewish Agency security department. 49 Immediately following the disaster the Jews blamed the British for responsibility in it, even though their policy of non-involvement was known in advance. Even though they warned the Haganah commanders not to send the convoy, and even though twenty eight Jews were saved on account of them. On April 16, the political department of the Jewish Agency sent official protests to the office of the Red Cross in Jerusalem and to the British army commander, General Macmillan. In the protest that was sent to Macmillan the political secretary of the Jewish Agency, Leo Cohen, accused the British, on the basis of a detailed report that the Jewish Agency received, for not putting into action the unit that was located at Antonius House, and he noted that army vehicles and armored cars passed by the place of the battle and their men did not aid the trapped passengers. Cohen demanded that the British government investigate the circumstances of the disaster and provide the findings of the investigation to the leaders of the Hebrew settlement. Also in internal reports the Jews accused the British. On April 16, Ben Gurion wrote to Moshe Sharett in New York: "According to all the signs the hand of the (British) army was involved in the massacre of the Hadassah people, of course not in an active way. But A, in preventing the approach of Haganah forces. B. In not preventing action of the gangs for hours." 50 It is worth noting that in the abovementioned report things are not described as experienced, and this even though Sharett needed precise information in order to conduct his political struggles in New York and Washington. In the meeting of the Jewish Agency leadership on April 21, Eliahu Dobkin said: "no one can understand what happened. In a distance of six hundred meters from the Jewish settlement seventy four Jews were murdered, and there was no attempt to rescue them." From the things Ben Gurion said in that meeting it is possible to learn that he held to his opinion: "if the British had not identified with the Arabs – and there is no doubt but that they identify with them, and the massacre at Sheikh Jarach prove this – the situation in Jerusalem would be more comfortable. It is possible to call the massacre in Sheikh Jarach "a British massacre." They (the British) were in the place, they did not lift a finger and they did not let others help." Moshe Kolodny (Kol) asked for a full report on the atrocity in Sheikh Jarach, and he said: "it seems to me that we deserve to know about this." Ben Gurion did not reply to Dobkin's question, and he did not agree to Kol's request. 51 Most Israeli historians that have written about the Hadassah Convoy affair have blamed the British for responsibility in the disaster. In the book of history of the War of Independence, the men of the IDF historical department have written: "The British army that was located a distance of some steps from the place, stood across, and all of our approaches to them were in vain. Their commander claimed that this is the answer to the acts at Deir Yassin, that happened two days earlier." 52 The Hadassah Convoy affair exposes not only the divisions in political conceptions, and the absence of a crystallized defense strategy among the heads of the Jewish settlement, of which flaws in the functioning of Haganah in Jerusalem were rotten fruits, but also the absence of the readiness of the district commanders, Haganah commanders and Jewish settlement leaders, to derive conclusions. The military and political establishment of the Hebrew settlement, and afterward the state of Israel, worked hard to hide failures. It is clear that the nation of Israel paid the price for the flaw of not deriving conclusions already in the War of Independence and in minor warfare after that. One of the signs of the moral corruption of the heads of the defense establishment, immediately after establishment of the state, is the fact that they did not investigate events. One of the signs of the intellectual betrayal in Israeli culture is that they have become defiled, and have formulated in fluent language myths about heads of the country and about heads of the defense establishment, and have not exposed their failures and their shortcomings. It was in the power of intellectuals and academics of the 1950s to expose the truth, and its exposure would have been recognized as a positive influence. But instead of making a norm of responsibility and criticism they adopted a norm of loyalty to elites, and their students are inclined to follow them. CHAPTER 3 MASSACRE OF CAPTIVES AT EIN ZAYTUN On May 1, 1948, Palmach soldiers from the third battalion committed a massacre of captives in the Arab village Ein Zaytun, near Tsfat, in the framework of Operation Yiftach, under the command of Yigal Alon. The individuals who have molded the Israeli, mythological, narrative about the War of Independence have overlooked this. Retired Colonel, Dr. Meir Payil, who, for most of his adult life has danced on the blood of the massacre that did not happen in Deir Yassin, ignored the massacre in Ein Zaytun, in particular when he was teaching IDF commanders, and generally the nation of Israel, to be strict about the purity of weapons and not to copy the "murderers of Deir Yassin." In her biography of Yigal Alon, which was published in 2004, Prof. Anita Shapira overlooked the massacre, and all she has to say about it is this: "Ein Zaytun was a large and strong village, and a real battle took place there. For an entire day the occupiers blew up the village houses in the eyes of the Arabs of Tsfat who watched and were shortly silenced from saving it. Another stage in the psychological campaign." 1 Professors Menahem Peri and Uzi Shavit, as editors of the book, did not advise Shapira that it is worthwhile to write the whole truth, even though this is indeed the role of academic editors in their position. So that the reader will understand the full significance of the Deir Yassin blood libel, we will expose here for the first time the massacre at Ein Zaytun and the measures that preceded it. They Have Murdered Uri Yaffeh In the first four months of the war, when the high command adopted a strategy of postponing decisions, and a tactic of defense and small-scale fighting, Yigal Alon's soldiers undertook most of the reprisal raids. Alon intended to command larger operations when the Haganah moved to a strategy of decisiveness. 2 And indeed, at the beginning of April, Alon was appointed commander of the first large operation, Operation Nachshon (but he did not take command over it because he was caught in Gush Etzion following the Nevi Daniel affair). In his place, Givati brigade commander Shimon Avidan was appointed. Alon did not even take part in the battles over Mishmar Ha Emek, Tiberias, Ramat Yochanan or Jerusalem, and he had no influence over them. In the middle of April his operations officer, Yitzhak Rabin was appointed commander of the Harel brigade and Operation Nachshon. Alon remained alone in Palmach headquarters. The other senior Palmach commanders functioned in brigades and battalions of Haganah. Alon's forecast was not realized: the Palmach was not the crushing force of the army of the state on its way, and Palmach headquarters was not operations oriented. Alon tried to struggle for the independence of Palmach: on April 18, he demanded from Yigal Yadin, the operations officer of Haganah, that orders for the Harel brigade be transferred through him alone, and proposed that orders from General Headquarters be given to the Palmach "Council." a, as an obligatory arrangement, and the Palmach "Council" would be concerned for executing them. He included a warning with his proposal: if it is not accepted "I will not be responsible for their execution." 3 Yadin accepted the proposal, but this was "a public relations concession" only, and Alon knew this. On April 21, a day of the failure of the Palmach third battalion in the battle over the Nevi Yosha police station, b Alon left Tel Aviv and the headquarters that lacked a military task, and he traveled to the eastern upper Galilee. In his book "In The Light Of Day And In Darkness", Yeroham Cohen c has written: "One day a delegation of inhabitants of the upper Galilee came to Haganah general headquarters in Tel Aviv…Their request was for reinforcements. According to the decision of the Haganah general headquarters Yigal Alon, a Palmach commander, went out to check the situation in the upper Galilee." 5 Alon has related that his intention was to hear from a first hand source what happened in Nevi Yosha. 6 Yigal Alon reached Ayelet Ha Shachar 7 in a small Oster plane, and he met with local commanders. Uri Yaffeh, commander of the upper Galilee, who was formerly a Palmach battalion commander, has related: "Yigal was depressed. Until then he had not commanded an operation and he was not doing anything. We sat with them, Mula Cohen d, Moshe Kalman e and I. We said that we cannot supply our forces and we asked that the first battalion come up to the upper Galilee. The Arabs were attacking the settlements in the Hula Valley and in Ramot Naftali. We asked for the addition of a battalion in order to clean up the territory. We had concentrated forces in the direction of Rosh Pina, in order to occupy Tsfat and take control of the Galilee. Yigal had no commanding authority over me. In my eyes he was a senior guest. I did not raise my opinion that he should leave the Galilee and fly back to Tel Aviv. In my eyes he was an envoy'." 8 Here is the testimony of Moshe Kalman: "The third battalion was independent. There was no central command, there was no planning from the central authority, there was no direction, not from Palmach headquarters and not from the general headquarters. A number of times they adorned operations that were already undertaken with beautiful plans. This is what happened, partially, also in Operation Yiftach. I was full of awareness that the rescue will not come from the center of the country or from the headquarters located in Tel Aviv or some other place, and that we can be victorious and stay alive only by our own forces and through the means in our possession. After the failure in Nevi Yosha I came to the conclusion that we must transfer the initiative to our hands and strike the enemy in his nerve center. I decided to go up to Tsfat, the center of activity of the Arabs in the Galilee." 9 Here is the testimony of Mula Cohen: "Yigal came to the Galilee. We made a situation assessment, crystallized a plan to bring another force, to concentrate the forces from the settlements and to start an offensive. Yigal went down to the general headquarters and gave a report." 10 Alon returned to Tel Aviv, reported orally to Yisrael Galili and to Yigal Yadin about his impressions and wrote "a synopsis of information I brought to you regarding the eastern valley." a Alon recommended continued attacks against Arab villages – so that the enemy will not be able to organize itself for a large scale attack; prevent passage of convoys secured by soldiers of the Arab-Jordanian Legion, because they are endangering the settlements of the valley and Hula in particular; to occupy and destroy the villages Zarin, Mokbila, Mazar and Nusi, on Mt. Gilboa and its foothills, and to take permanent control of Zarin and Mazar; to harass the town of Beit Shean – so that its inhabitants will have an incentive to flee; to occupy the villages Smarya and Frauna to its south, to take control of ridges over Kaukav El Hava. b Alon proposed that these actions be undertaken by the first battalion commanded by Dan Lanner, whose bases were in the Jezreel Valley and the western Galilee. Alon has written: "In the eastern upper Galilee are hundreds of Arab soldiers who have filtered into it from the Golan Heights and have joined gangs whose members are inhabitants of Tsfat and the villages. The British officers in the Galilee finger have aided these gangs in capturing the police stations at Halasa, c Nevi Yosha and Mt. Canaan. The British stand before the army camp and the police station in Rosh Pina. The Metualim d are joining the war against the Jews. A bridge that can be assembled has been brought to Kuneitra to cross the Jordan. The Arabs have an advantage in the areas of Kibbutz Dan and Dafna. We need to reinforce the upper Galilee with some companies and give them more weapons, to cut off Arab Tsfat from the villages of Ein Zaytun and Arab Biriya, to harass these villages with gunfire to make their inhabitants flee, to kill the senior British officers that are aiding the Arabs, to occupy the Mt. Canaan police station and capture the army camp and the police station in Rosh Pina, as soon as they are evacuated. To occupy the village of Malkiya a on the Lebanese border – so that the Arabs in the Nevi Yosha police station will not have access to the border and in order to block the road of invasion; to dig a trench and produce obstacles and land mines between Dan and Dafna and between the border; to capture first permanent control in Tel El Kadi b, two the length of the Jordan, between Mishmar Ha Yarden near Banot Yakov bridge and the northern Kineret, and between Ramot Naftali and Hebrew Biriya; to eject the Beduin located between Mifgash Ha Yarden and the Kineret and between Jib Yusuf c, and to plant anti-tank road blocks on the road going out from Banot Yakov bridge. 11 In this report from the Palmach commander there is no mention either of the occupation of Tsfat or bringing up the first battalion to the finger of the Galilee, two key moves in Operation Yiftach. In contrast it does mention deporting Arabs from their villages, even though with some of those villages there were non-attack agreements, like the agreement that existed with Deir Yassin. It also mentions the murder of British officers, an act that was in opposition not only to the declared ideology of the Haganah organization, but also the logic of the war. If we did not know that Yigal Alon wrote this report, it would be possible to attribute it to Yehoshua Zatler, Lehi commander in Jerusalem, who was so vilified by Meir Payil and his comrades. The Alon report was transferred to Ben Gurion in Jerusalem, d and the next day, on April 23, Ben Gurion sent a telegram to Reuven Shiloh, Yisrael Galili and Yigal Yadin: "Do you think that occupation of Haifa e enables and necessitates concentration of a large force for occupation of Tsfat?"12 From a complaint from commanders in the Galilee finger about a lack of soldiers, Ben Gurion and Galili concluded that members of the Kibbutzim were not enlisting in Haganah. According to the ideology that was widespread then, members of the Kibbutzim claimed that work in the Kibbutz was like fighting on the battle field, since the ultimate purpose of Zionism was in their view expansion of the Kibbutzim that will take control of the Jewish state that will be established. Galili, a Kibbutz member himself, demanded that Moshe Mann, commander of the Golani brigade, and who was a member of Kibbutz Merhavia, report to him on "what is being done to recruit field soldiers from the agricultural settlements for needs of offensive actions." 13 The head of the Haganah national command center promised in a telegram to the Golani brigade commander to come on April 22 to Kibbutz Ayelet Hashahar to meet with Kibbutz representatives, because "general recruitment from the agricultural settlements was necessary." 14 Galili did not travel to Ayelet Hashahar because Moshe Mann traveled to Tel Aviv and they met there, and Galili reported to Ben Gurion in Jerusalem that "in the upper eastern Galilee the situation is getting worse." Kibbutz representatives conditioned the recruitments of their members on receiving people from the home front for the agricultural work, and Galili told Ben Gurion about an attempt to send building workers from Tel Aviv to the upper Galilee: "Recruitment of the building workers is delayed. In our view recruit youth battalions volunteers for a month or so for work only in the agricultural settlements, from age sixteen. Advise me of your agreement." In that telegram Galili expressed "worry over a British scheme to aid the enemy in taking control over the eastern Galilee." 15 It seems that Galili was influenced by Alon's mistaken assessments, and these two senior figures, that placed their imprint on the War of Independence and on the security of the state of Israel many years after that, were cut off from the reality. On April 25, Ben Gurion returned to Tel Aviv and received reports. In the evening he met with Yisrael Galili, Levy Eshcol, Yosef Yezrieli and Moshe Tzadok, for a discussion about recruitment of manpower. He wrote in his diary: "Except for 15,000 men that are lacking for full recruitment, in my view the ones recruited are not being exploited, and the commanders are confining too many people in far too many places, more than necessary, and are not activating enough people as needed in battles. The failures in Nevi Yosha and in Zarin a are only because they did not recruit our forces that were possible for the action and there was a need to recruit from the agricultural settlements. Too many workers out of the norm and a bureaucratic approach, too many subordinated to static concepts." 16 At the moment of truth it seemed that the members of the Kibbutzim were not so ideological as they presented themselves, and that the claims about their exceptional contribution to the establishment of the state were, at least partially, myths that were designated for political needs to block Menachem Begin and his colleagues from reaching the country's government. Regarding an all out attack in the eastern Galilee, Alon proposed that he command it, 17 and on April 25, Yigal Yadin appointed him as commander of Operation Yiftach, b in which the third battalion of Palmach, battalion 11 of Golani and members of Haganah in Kibbutzim in the Galilii and Tsfat took part. According to the "Operation Document" Yadin also intended to send to the Galilee one of the battalions of the Carmeli brigade that took control of Haifa three days earlier, in order to counter the intention of the Arabs to take control, with British help, over "key points in the upper Galilee, as preparation for invasion from outside." In the orders, the operational objective was defined: taking control over the expanse of Tel Hai in anticipation of invasion, and it states: "The method, capturing key points located in enemy hands in order to create protected bases of operation for the future; taking control of transportation arteries and guarding them; basing ourselves in the wide space and creation of protected zones." Yadin demanded that Alon send a daily report, not to Palmach headquarters but to general headquarters. 18 So not only was the Yiftach brigade that was in formation, subordinated to the general headquarters, but also the Harel brigade (because the general headquarters could not relay an order to Rabin through Alon, who was in the Galilee). Yadin ignored Shalom Havlin, who filled Alon's place in the Palmach headquarters. It is possible to see in this measure on Yadin's part, with Ben Gurion's support – establishment of a Palmach brigade and appointment of Alon as a brigade commander – the first step in dismantling the Palmach headquarters and subordination of the Palmach brigades directly to the general headquarters. ` Alon's initiative in establishing Yiftach brigade and his readiness to command it worried Yitzhak Rabin, the commander of Harel brigade, very much, as well as his deputy Iti Amichai, the commander of the fourth battalion in this brigade, Yosef Tabenkin, his deputies Uzi Narkiss and Amos Horev, his operations officer, Eliahu Sela (Raanan) and the battalion's politruk, Benny Marshak. On April 25 they sent a telegram to Alon: "We were astonished by the information that you have taken command over the Galilee instead of command over all of Palmach, a fact that is full of danger for the system and the whole matter. Explain what happened." 19 The next day Rabin sent a telegram to Shalom Havlin: "Urgently explain what is going on in the brigade, a Why did Sasha go up to the Galilee?" 20 "On April 27, Havlin sent a telegram in reply to the commanders of Harel brigade: "There is a place for your fears, but this time it is not a result of outside pressure, but an objective development of things. It is possible that in coming days we will be called for consultations and we will invite some from among you. There is no possibility of explanation via the communications equipment." 21 Rabin and his comrades were not mistaken: the appointment of Yigal Alon as commander of Operation Yiftach and establishment of the Yiftach brigade were links in the process that concluded with dismantling Palmach. But at that stage of the war dismantling Palmach did not frighten Rabin, Tabenkin and their soldiers, but rather caused concern that their flawed functioning, failures and oversights, would be examined by the general headquarters, and not – as it was following the events of April 23 – whitewashed in the Palmach headquarters. As mentioned, the Harel brigade and the fourth battalion had failed in the offensive on Nevi Samuel. Rabin, Tabenkin, and their soldiers were concerned that if the character of their functioning were exposed they would be removed from their commands. The men from Harel brigade were not the only ones who were dissatisfied; Uri Yaffeh was astonished when Alon came up to the Galilee. Yaffeh saw himself as an appropriate party for commanding the operation, and he believed that Alon was stealing the position from him. Here is his story: "At the first calm moment I sat with Yisrael Galili in a café in Tel Aviv, and he told me, 'when I saw the orders for operation Yiftach I said to Sinai b: they have murdered Uri Yaffeh'. Galili said that he was not in the meeting where it was decided to give Yigal Alon the command, and that this was a decision of Yadin alone. Yigal Alon left the Galilee as an envoy and returned as a commander. I felt that they deceived me. I intended to attack Arab Tsfat. I did not need approval, I was only waiting until they reinforced us with soldiers and weapons. I was certain that a brigade would be established in the Galilee and that I will command it. Today I understand that I had to travel to Tel Aviv to describe the situation to Galili and Yadin and receive command of the operation. In the days of the first calm moment, in the meeting of the Mapam secretariat in Tel Aviv, I talked with Alon. He told me that the veteran commanders of Palmach had been disappointing, they did not succeed in commanding large forces, and therefore he intended to replace the Negev brigade commander, Nahum Sarig. I told him that until now Nahum did not have an opportunity to command large forces, and I convinced him not to remove him. Alon said that he will give him another opportunity. I assume that his approach to me was as his approach to Nahum." 22 After the failure at Nevi Yosha, Moshe Kalman, deputy commander of the third battalion transferred most of his soldiers to Mt. Canaan, on the way to the occupation of Tsfat. Five hundred thirty three young men and two hundred young women from the third battalion were housed in abandoned hotels on the mountain. On April 24, a day before the decision for Operation Yiftach, Cohen and Kalman decided in a telephone conversation regarding the measures for the next day. On account of the roadblock the Arabs had set up blocking the road from Rosh Pina to Mt. Canaan and the damage on it, at night men of the third battalion assembled bridges and water transit equipment on that road, and on the 25th of the month eleven trucks loaded with supplies broke through the Arab road blocks and reached Mt. Canaan, and at the same time Kalman and his soldiers attacked an Arab position in Tsfat, for the purpose of diverting attention. After forty five minutes the convoy returned safely to Rosh Pina. 23 When Yigal Alon came to the Galilee the third battalion was already ready and waiting for the battle for Tsfat. Moshe Kalman has related that he reported to Alon about his plans, he approved them and appointed him commander of the third battalion. 24 His deputy, Meir Dresdner, has confirmed: "The occupation of Tsfat was planned before Operation Yiftach was planned, and before Alon received command of the operation." 25 Yigal Alon's Leadership According to the pilot's log of Pinhas Ben Porat (Pinia), Alon flew from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, met there with Harel brigade commanders, returned to Tel Aviv on the day on which he was given command of Operation Yiftach 26, and flew to the upper Galilee. At Ayelet Ha Shahar he received a room with a desk and telephone, and he established an operation headquarters and the brigade. He appointed Uri Yaffeh his deputy, Mula Cohen as operations officer, and Shalom Ronen (Rantovitz) from Kibbutz Shamir, who was commander of Company 9 of Palmach in 1946, as administrative officer. Moshe Kalman was appointed as commander of the third battalion and Meir Dresdner as his deputy. Alon brought his secretary, Shulamit Novik, from Palmach headquarters in Tel Aviv, and the former commander of the commando platoon, Yeroham Cohen, who was appointed intelligence officer for the operation. 27 Shalom Ronen has said that there were some "cliques" in the Yiftach brigade leadership, and that the ruling clique was Yigal Alon's. All its men were members of the United Kibbutz movement. 28 But Uri Yaffeh, a member of Kibbutz Maoz Hayim (also of United Kibbutz) was neutralized because he was a Palmach veteran and he was not numbered among the admirers of Yigal Alon. Yaffeh dealt only with settlements and actions of the field corps, and was not a partner in planning or commanding operations, 29 although officially he was deputy commander of the operation. Some days after he reached the Galilee, Alon met with representatives of the Galilee settlements. Ein Zaytun, Birya and Tsfat were under siege, and their representatives did not come to the meeting. The settlement representatives asked Alon for reinforcements in men and weapons. "Yigal listened silently for a long time", wrote Yeroham Cohen. "At the end of their speaking he explained…that Operation Yiftach was not designated to reinforce the defensive campaign of the region, but to take the initiative and take control over the upper Galilee, to connect it to the Jordan Valley and liberate Tsfat…Before the validity of the British Mandate falls away, in order to deploy again across from the expected front, when the invasion starts. Yigal explained that if his forces are divided for local reinforcements he will lose the initiative, while the enemy will be free to choose for itself the time place and method of the action. He informed those present that not for this alone he was mindful of concentrating forces recruited from the third battalion of the Palmach for the operation and also a battalion from men of Carmeli under command of Yisrael Lior a. But he needed to reinforce an additional battalion. This and more. He turned to the kibbutz representatives that were present for the conversation and asked them to provide some of their men and weapons for the purpose of the operation. Even though they did not achieve what they wanted in men and weapons, the representatives returned to their homes full of confidence, because they were standing before a turning point. In this meeting Yigal Alon adhered to the offensive approach, the whole Galilee through offensives." 30 Nativa Ben Yehuda has written in her book: "Yigal just made magic, real magic, that only he could make, the only one in the country that could do such things, and as a result of this all of Etzel in Tsfat and the whole upper Galilee united with him under one headquarters! So we were all of us together, Haganah, field corps, the Jewish police, Etzel, intelligence corps and civilians, and we, the Palmach! And even a tribe of Arabs, Arab El Hiv, were also among our forces. For the first time after two thousand years! And this removed from the start all the problems that these schisms and frictions caused in all the rest of the places in the country, and this created among us a wonderful atmosphere of partnership, of everyone united." 31 Yisrael Lior has written that the mood improved when Alon appeared in the Galilee, and there was no one who disturbed his leadership. 32 Alon was aware that there was also a limit to his charisma and that he could not just grab necessities from the Kibbutzim. He knew that at the operation's first stage he would not receive supplies from Palmach headquarters, and also not from the logistics branch of the general headquarters. Personal resourcefulness was required in this matter. Yeroham Cohen has written: "Yigal's repeated approaches to general headquarters for transferring funds were not answered…Yigal behaved in his characteristic way. He phoned his friend from Tiberias, Mino Goldzveig, and asked him for a loan." Cohen traveled to Tiberias that night. Goldzveig got the director of the Anglo Palestine bank out of bed, and he withdrew from the bank ten thousand Lirot, gave the money to Cohen and did not ask for a receipt. 33 Alon has written that the presence of the British in the Galilee influenced all his considerations. The British controlled the junction of roads near Rosh Pina and interfered with traffic, and Alon tried hard to obscure from their sight the concentrations of forces and their movements, so that, as he expressed it: "they will not worry that the cards are liable to incline to our advantage". As most of the Haganah commanders and leaders of the Jewish settlement, Alon saw a scheme in every British move, and he interpreted the British withdrawal from the Galilee before the termination of the Mandate as a sign of "their complete confidence in an assured Arab victory." He also was careful not to provide the British with an "excuse for remaining in the Galilee." 34 He later explained: "My approach was to expand our control in every place it was possible, to take control over as many areas as possible, in order to build a defensive front in anticipation of the invasion. I therefore reasoned on offensive action." 35 On April 26 Arabs fired on the Jewish quarter in Tsfat and on the Palmach base in Mt. Canaan. Two bridges on the main road were blown up, between Kibbutz Amiad and Tiberas. They also attacked Kibbutz Lahavot-Habashan and fired on Jews who were working in the fields of Kibbutz Dan and Kibbutz Dafna. On that day the British evacuated one of their bases (not the main one) near Rosh Pina, and Haganah men entered it without interference. 36 This event, and the notices about the British plans for evacuation, calmed Alon's concerns about British intentions. He understood that the British will soon evacuate all the bases in the Galilee finger, and that he can attack the Arabs before the termination of the Mandate, without worrying about British reactions. In "Operational Order Number 1" that he sent to the Yiftach brigade on April 27, Alon defined the objectives of the Arabs. Namely to cut off the Jewish quarters in Tsfat and Jewish Biriya, Ein Zaytun and Mt. Canaan, from the settlements of the Hula Valley. In an order that Moshe Kalman received from him, it stated that the trend of the operation was to take control of Tsfat and its surroundings so that there will be free traffic between the settlements in this bloc, and the bloc of the Hula Valley. For this purpose the third battalion of Palmach must occupy Arab Biriya and destroy it and occupy the village of Ein Zaytun and establish a base there. "Timing, planning and road blocks – choose for yourself." 37 This formulation of the order confirms Moshe Kalman's version. He was practically independent in all his moves. Reuven Netzer, a commander of one of the battalion companies, has testified that Yigal Alon informed the company commanders about the objectives of operation Yiftach without detailed directives. 38 The formulation of the order also indicates that Alon's intention was to destroy the Arab villages and eject their inhabitants. On April 27, the British evacuated the air field near Mahanayim and the base near it, and soldiers from the Yiftach brigade moved in. 39 In anticipation of evacuation of the largest British camp in the area, south east of Rosh Pina, Alon sent a force from the third battalion, commanded by Yitzhak (Itzik) Hochman, to break into it at the moment the British left, and until then to block all the roads leading to it. except for the road that led to the main highway, on which the British were expected to travel. Experience of recent days was no grounds for the suspicion that the British intended to hand the camp over to the Arabs. But Alon wanted to prevent a surprise, and the suspicion was deeply planted in him. Gabi Broshi, one of Hochman's subordinates, has related that he and his comrades suggested a soccer competition to the British soldiers on April 27, and that their intention was to enter the camp and learn about it, but the British cancelled the competition. On the afternoon of April 28, the British handed over the Rosh Pina police station to the Jewish policemen Aviv Keller and Marcel Tubias, a who parked themselves there, 40 and in the afternoon the British evacuated the camp. Hochman's force moved in , and Yigal Alon entered with them. Some shacks had been set on fire during the evacuation, and Alon thought that the British were trying to set fire to the whole camp and ordered his soldiers to fire in the air. The British did not return fire. They named the camp after Pilon Friedman who was killed in the attack on the Nevi Yosha police station a week earlier. 41 Angie Cohler, Uri Yaffeh's secretary, has related that he found the English words: "Welcome Israel." 42 painted on the main shack in the camp. "All The British Have Left The Upper Eastern Galilee" reported the headline on the newspaper Ha'Aretz on April 29. Alon and his operations command center for Yiftach moved from Ayelet Ha Shahar to the Rosh Pina police station, which received the name "Yiftach House." Destruction And Looting In Ein Zaytun To the east, west and south of the Jewish quarter of Tsfat were Arab quarters. To its north, at a distance of two kilometers, were the villages of Ein Zaytun and Arab Biriya. These villages controlled the entry to the Jewish quarter, and only at night could small forces filter into it on foot. In order to attack the Arab quarters from the Jewish quarter Moshe Kalman had to penetrate it, and that is how he planned to occupy EIn Zaytun and Biriya. Alon, as mentioned, approved this plan. In his operational order (April 27) Alon did not specify a schedule, but Kalman understood that he had to undertake the mission with all due haste. On April 28 and 29 the third battalion did not attack Biriya or Ein Zaytun. There were heavy rains and Kalman was concerned that his soldiers would slip on the rocks when they stormed forward on the village's slope. On April 29 it was recorded in the training diary for Ein Gev: "The operation is postponed again because of wintry weather and the cold that has fallen on us suddenly." 43 Alon sent Mula Cohen to goad Kalman on, and the new battalion commander explained to his predecessor that he was waiting for a lull in the rains that would certainly come soon, since it was already the end of April. Mula Cohen was not convinced and demanded that Kalman attack that night, but Kalman held to his position. He stated: "the Nevi Yosha affair will not be repeated." Cohen informed Kalman that he is dismissing him from his post, because of refusal to follow orders, and he appointed in his place, Kalman's deputy, Meir Dresdner; but Kalman's status in the third battalion was stronger than that of Mula Cohen, and none of the men of the battalion – particularly not Dresdner – accepted that Kalman was dismissed. Cohen grasped the situation, and rescinded his dismissal. He explained that he did not intend it seriously, and returned to Rosh Pina. Dresdner, as deputy battalion commander, and Netzer the company commander, also thought it worthwhile to wait for the rains to stop. On April 30, the rains halted. Kalman has related: "With darkness the battalion (two companies and an auxiliary platoon) went out. The distance was two kilometers. An auxiliary unit led the way. with intelligence officer Aryeh Gal in command, I followed after the patrols, and after me in two lines marched the companies of Reuven Netzer and Shmuel Katvan. After an hour, Gal informed me that we had arrived at the target, and I advanced and I saw that we had not reached Ein Zaytun, but Arab Biriya. We backtracked, and I led the battalion to the target." 45 At 3:00 AM, on the morning of May 1, the battalion reached the ridge over Ein Zaytun. Netzer has related: "We advanced, platoon commander Avraham Licht, and I, in the direction of the village, and we determined the paths of attack and control. There was a full moon. We heard a voice: 'from the wadi'. We did not answer and we returned to the place of the deployment. The Davidka and the medium machine guns fired, and we attacked. There was no resistance and we thought that the village was empty, but only the Arab soldiers had fled. Most of the inhabitants stayed in heir houses." 46 Eliezer (Ladis) Cohen, a soldier in Netzer's company has related: "Grenades were exploding at the time of the attack and a whole squad was wounded. The squad commander, Moshe Ezra, was down, wounded, and he shouted: 'Arab women threw grenades at me!' There was an argument whether to fire at the Arab women, and Netzer forbid us from firing at them." Aharon Yoeli has related: "In my view our men threw the grenades, not as should have been, and they were struck. When we attacked rain fell again, and it was very difficult. Mordechai Solomon died of his wounds." 47 Moshe Green and seven of his soldiers, new immigrants from Greece, members of the Kibbutz Afikim preparatory group, blocked the road between Arab Biriya and Ein Zaytun, and they deployed on a hill overlooking the road. Ein Zaytun did not receive reinforcements from Biriya, but Arabs fired on the men of the road block from the Mt. Canaan police station. Green has related: "The distance between us and Arab Biriya was a few hundred meters. We were at the focal point of the gunfire. I commanded my men to advance to the village, to occupy the farthest houses and fortify themselves in them. We passed across the dead area running. We reached the village, rained down gunfire and we stormed forward. The inhabitants fled. a We were eight men, and we occupied Biriya." 48 Moshe Kalman: "Netzer encountered a forward Arab position in Ein Zaytun, and I shouted to the auxiliary commander, Yosef Bulbus (Hoter Yishai) to open fire. We fired a Davidka shell, and it turned around in the air. We heard a strange noise, much time passed, and suddenly all the area was lit up with a bright and blinding light, the light of day, and we heard explosions. In the light of the shell we saw that many of the Jewish inhabitants of Tsfat and some men of Elad Peled's platoon that were stationed in the city, were sitting on the opposite slope, watching the drama. They applauded and cheered after every shell that was fired. The applause encouraged the soldiers, but this was an unpleasant surprise. I understood that the secret information about the timing of the attack, that I sent to Peled in a telegram to Tsfat, had filtered out and reached the Jews there, and if so it was possible that it also reached the Arabs. Five Davidka shells were fired. They did not reach Ein Zaytun and did not cause physical damage, but they had a wonderful psychological effect. We occupied the village almost without opposition. "When dawn came I saw that my headquarters and the auxiliary platoon were exposed to gunfire from Arab Biriya. Moshe Green and his Greeks, the road block squad, attacked Arab Biriya with Finnish knives in their mouths and they occupied it. The home front of the Jewish quarter was opened. We sent young Tsfat residents there, with supplies for the battalion that would soon arrive. I commanded the blowing up of all the houses in the two villages. Ein Zaytun and Biriya, and we shot one Davidka shell every hour in the direction of the dwellings of the Arabs in Tsfat. I carried out my to the letter. We deported all the children, women and elderly from Ein Zaytun. They spread stories. That is how we prepared the next step, occupation of Tsfat." 49 In the preparation diary for Ein Gev on May 1, it states: "All day explosions from the direction of Ein Zaytun, smoke and fires…during the whole day come comrades with booty – goats, fruit, horses, donkeys." 50 Nativa Ben Yehuda has written that there were rumors about "all kinds of great thefts on the part of the high commanders. For example, that all the gold coins that were found in Ein Zaytun under the floor of one of the inhabitants that fled, and were taken that night by the battalion headquarters, the battle headquarters, completely disappeared. On the way back from Ein Zaytun to Mt. Canaan the gold coins were in tin cans, so the story went, loaded on the stretchers for the shells, and by the time they reached Mt. Canaan, all these tin cans were already empty." 51 Massacre Of The Captives On May 1, at 11:30 AM, the operation commander, Yigal Alon, reported to Palmach headquarters that 100 prisoners were taken in Ein Zaytun. 52 On May 11 a notice was published in Al Hamishmar newspaper that "fifty men of the gangs were killed in the battles over Biriya and Ein Zaytun." In an article that was published fifty days after the event, on June 20, in the Haganah periodical Ba Mahaneh, it stated that more than 100 inhabitants of Ein Zaytun were killed when the village was occupied. In the Palmach book Yigal Alon wrote: "the enemy left in the area dozens of fallen, mostly Iraqi volunteers." 53 On the morning of May 1, the settlement of Ramot Naftali in the upper Galilee was attacked and Yigal Alon was concerned that its defenders were not holding fast. He therefore ordered Moshe Kalman to take captives in Ein Zaytun, for the purpose of exchanging them with members of Ramot Naftali who were liable to fall captive. But the men of Ramot Naftali repelled the attack, and the captives from Ein Zaytun were "superfluous." 54 The first one that recounted the murder of captives in Ein Zaytun, as an eye witness, is Nativa Ben Yehuda, in her book "Through Strong Ties", published in 1985. But Nativa authored a book of recollections without noting the real names of the people about whom she wrote. It has been comfortable for Israeli society to ignore the explicit testimony of the massacre in Ein Zaytun. It seems there were a number of murders of captive in Ein Zaytun. Reuven Netzer, who commanded the occupation of the village, and also commanded the forces that were stationed in it after its surrender, told me in 1981, in an interview that was arranged in his Kibbutz – Mishmar Ha Emek of the Shomer Ha Tzair: "This troubles my conscience to this day. After we occupied the village it became clear that the farmers remained in their houses with their women and children, and had not fled. "We concentrated them outside, in two places, we told the comrades not to take spoil, and to concentrate all serious booty in the mosque. We were there all day, and we spoke with the Arabs. We did not see them as enemies. Beforehand we took captives, in order to exchange them for possible Jewish prisoners, members of Ramot Naftali. But Moshe Kalman told me, in the presence of all the comrades, 'take all the young men, bring them up to the second floor of the building and blow them up from below'. Some comrades gathered together, and we decided to go to Kalman's headquarters at the mountain peak over Ein Zaytun and tell him such things are not done. When we reached him he said this plan was cancelled because Yigal Alon had commanded him to take captives as hostages. I selected thirty young Arabs, perhaps more,. Some soldiers led them, with hands raised, to the base in Mt. Canaan. I did not know that I selected them for death. I told the young Arabs, you and you and you, and so on. Afterward Nativa told me that they killed them on the slope of Mt. Canaan, the one that faces in the direction of Rosh Pina." 55 Aharon Yoeli has related: "Three men came to Ein Zaytun from Tsfat, they took twenty three Arabs, and they said that these are law-breakers and murderers. They masked their eyes, took their watches and put them in their pockets. They led them to a passage in the hills and they killed them. This was their revenge for the Jews of Tsfat. I understood that our commanders were looking for more "killers" that will do this work. In Tsfat not everyone was ultra-religious. In my view this was not a murder of captives. This was the killing of Arab murderers. The rest they deported in the direction of Jarmak that evening, and in order to hurry them on, they shot at them." 56 Yitzhak Golan has related that thirty captives were brought for interrogation in Mt. Canaan: "The men of the intelligence service interrogated them, and after the interrogation there was a problem about what to do with them. All of them were soldiers. They told us to bring them down to the police station in Rosh Pina. On the way they tried to escape and so we shot them. There was no alternative. There was a danger that they will flee to Tsfat and disclose there how poor we are in weapons and manpower. It could be that they were killed while bound. The next day a squad was sent to bury them." 57 And this is how Nativa Ben Yehuda has described the massacre: "When the comrades entered the village they gathered all those that seemed to them to be real soldiers, or that were really officers, in other words, really seemed like officers. So they took all of them, tied their hands and feet and threw them below in the wadi of the valley beneath Ein Zaytun and they laid there for two days. All the time the problem hung in the air, what to do with them…After three days it emerged that they were all killed, but two Palmach men that murdered them on orders from the battalion commander left the bodies with the hands and feet tied, and there was concern that some foreign a eyes might see what was happening here with these captives." According to Ben Yehuda, the battalion commander looked for men for whom "blood is not frightening", and he chose her. A unit under her command went down into the wadi, and took off the ropes with which the corpses were bound. In a conversation with the author Nativa Ben Yehuda confirmed that she did this. "Perhaps this was the moment that changed my life", she wrote in her book. "It was the most awful thing…that they concealed this whole business. Never – but never – did anything come out." she tried to understand Kalman: "Age twenty three, he was thrown without any preparation into a terrible war, and was under dreadful pressure…Only two weeks earlier twenty three of his men were killed b and nevertheless he overcame this disaster and continued on to Ein Zaytun, even taking on himself the command of the whole battalion that liberated Tsfat with hundreds of thousands of Arabs in the region. The main thing was that no one in the battalion was permitted to speak." 58 After thirty years Moshe Kalman told the author that after occupation of Ein Zaytun he had to occupy Tsfat and he did not have "time to deal with captives" and that if he had freed them they certainly would have joined the Arab soldiers in Tsfat. 59 The deputy battalion commander, Meir Dresdner, has related that he advanced with his soldiers in the direction of Tsfat immediately after the occupation of Ein Zaytun and he did not know about a massacre. Some days later the rumors reached him, but then he was occupied in Tsfat, and until the lull he fought without stopping. He never spoke with Kalman about this affair. 60 On May 6 the eavesdropping unit of the intelligence service recorded a telephone conversation between the British army commander, General Macmillan, and the commander of the British army in the north of the country. Macmillan requested a report on the massacre in Tsfat. 61 From all these testimonies it emerges that there was a massacre in Ein Zaytun. Around a hundred prisoners were murdered after occupation of the village. The murderers were Jews from Tsfat that came to Ein Zaytun in order to kill Arab law-breakers, security guards that led the captives on the road from Mt. Canaan to Rosh Pina and thought that they were escaping, and two men from the third battalion of Palmach, who were following the orders of the battalion commander Moshe Kalman. In 1991, Dr. Avihu Ronen published an article entitled "Purity Of Arms" in the quarterly of the command center of the IDF Chief Education Officer "Skira Hodshit." In the article, among other things, he comments on the Deir Yassin affair and the massacre in Ein Zaytun. Ronen writes about Deir Yassin: "Everyone in possession of a version agrees that during the battle, in light of the unexpected Arab resistance, the wounding of a number of commanders, and the large number of wounded in the attacking force – the attackers lost their senses, fired indiscriminately and killed women the elderly and children." a He bases his statements on the massacre in Ein Zaytun on the book by Nativa Ben Yehuda alone and concludes: "Ben Yehuda, perhaps due to her honesty, very clearly exposes the tremendous problematic character of what is before us. War enables release of urges, and gives legitimacy to taking human life. The urge, the need is always present, if not in one individual, then in another individual. The legitimacy to kill stems also from the urge to protect oneself or from revenge. In the case of the battalion commander, it also stems from the same feeling known so well to soldiers in battle, of the isolation of the soldier in the field, with all its problems, the dangers that he faces, and the definite recognition that he cannot survive if he will not struggle against the problem with his own power. Namely that: "I am here – I am the one that decides." "But ethical values, on the other hand, are the very restraint that leads the act of killing and routes it into military action. They turn the man in battle into a soldier and distinguish him from the murderer plain and simple. And it is enough for one commander or for one man to release himself from these limitations, in order to introduce into the battle for Tsfat the dimension of murder. In any case, the personality of the commander stands out, as someone that held in his hand the power to permit and the power to prevent. The battalion commander in this case, for his own reasons, released the restraints, and it seems that despite the general atmosphere that opposed his concept, there were indeed two individuals that followed the order. On the other hand, in this context the dimension of individual responsibility in fact is also prominent, and in particular the responsibility of all the commanders in the chain of command. The company commanders that refused or prevented undertaking the act upon their men, related to this order of the battalion commander, as a clearly illegal order. In this they also showed that the obligation to obey is subordinate to ethical limitations. The shared aspect of the events in Deir Yassin and the events in Ein Zaytun, is therefore the loss of inhibition of the man in battle. It seems that this is not accidental, because in both cases it is a matter of individuals for whom this was their first military action or among the first. Because in both cases it is a matter of soldiers whose comrades were killed before their eyes; and the feeling suggested in descriptions of both stories, because from the perspective of the soldiers this was an existential war between life and death." 62 Ronen avoids the question of why the massacre that didn't happen in Deir Yassin was exposed, as it were, and trumpeted the next day, while the massacre that did occur in Ein Zaytun was mentioned only after 37 years and exposed fully in this book only after 58 years. If he would ask himself to analyze the matter perhaps he would cast doubt on the Deir Yassin blood libel. But Ronen needed the massacre in Deir Yassin in order to develop his thesis on the purity of arms. In 1995 one of the local newspapers of the Schocken chain published an investigation into the Ein Zaytun affair. In "Tzomet Hasharon" it stated in an announcement of the article on the front page: "The massacre in Ein Zaytun. May '48 The Yiftach battalion a of Palmach occupied Ein Zaytun, an Arab village near Tsfat, and took dozens of Arab soldiers prisoner. After two days they executed the bound prisoners. The next day they concealed the ropes so that the UN would not discover what happened. A true story about purity of arms." The journalist who edited the investigation, Batya Feldman, queried Nativa Ben Yehuda: "No one asked questions? No one investigated?" And Ben Yehuda answered: "They didn't keep notes and there were no investigations. In 1949 when I was discharged, there was already an IDF history branch. They turned to me and asked for three chapters as an example. When I brought it and they read it, I was told that my Hebrew is not fitting. So they believed in the language of Agnon and beyond, I wrote plain language, but this was not the reason. There was endless censorship then, military, political. b There was the feeling of a small weak country, and what will they say if a story like this comes out. Ein Zaytun was not the worst of all of them. There were worse. Indeed men sat in jail after they were charged with group rape, they looted occupied houses, they fought and they killed." 63 In his book "Uprising And Disaster" published in 2004, Prof. Yoav Gelber has written: "The exuberance of Mapam to wave around the Deir Yassin affair and plaster accusations on the dissidents, stemmed from the uncomfortable feeling over the part of Palmach commanders and soldiers, that were identified with Mapam, at least in its own eyes – in similar acts, such as the murder of dozens of prisoners in Ein Zaytun before the invasion." 64 In the beginning of the 1980s I took part in a discussion on investigating the War of Independence, in a conference of the organization of professional archive employees. In the conference I claimed that in books and research on the War of Independence the whole truth has not been written. Dr. (Col.) Elhanan Oren from the IDF history department, who wrote his doctorate on the War of Independence, asked me what I meant. I answered: the massacre in Ein Zaytun for example. Oren and the other participants in the discussion claimed that there was no such massacre. The discussion was recorded and broadcast after a few days on the IDF radio station. During the same period I lectured in the biennial course of the Kibbutz Movement in the Tabenkin Institute in Ramat Efal, and I was in close contact with Yisrael Galili, who invited me for a conversation, and he said to me that the heads of Palmach are boiling mad over my statements, and are demanding that I be removed from my work in the biennial course, and to sever all contacts with me. Galili claimed that there was no massacre in Ein Zaytun and he advised me to deny my statements publicly, and if not I would be dismissed immediately from the Tabenkin Institute, and the Kibbutz Movement will sever contact with me. I rejected the proposal and I said: "The Palmach culture of falsehood that the Kibbutz Movement has adopted, will bring about its collapse. I am sorry about that. I am very disappointed that the IDF has adopted this culture and for that we will all pay a very heavy price." Galili looked at me sadly and said: "This is not dependent on me, this is not dependent on me." After a short time, and after I published the details of the flawed functioning of Yosef Tabenkin and the fourth Palmach battalion in "The Hulda Convoy" I was dismissed from my job in the biennial course, and the Tabenkin Institute stopped cooperating with me on research on the War of Independence. The Kibbutzim stopped inviting me to lecture. A process started in which I was banned by the Israeli elites who until then considered me one of their own. Chapter Four Mythological Defense Culture The Deir Yassin, Hadassah Convoy, and Ein Zaytun affairs pertain to three massacres: one to the west of Jerusalem, that did not happen at all and became "the mother" of all massacres, the second in Sheikh Jarach, that could have been prevented, and the third near Tsfat, a basic massacre without any sophistication, that is as if it did not happen, and is not included in the collective memory of Israelis. It is possible to find a connection among these three affairs: The Palmach, beautiful in itself, that fabricated the massacre in Deir Yassin, did not do everything in its power to prevent the massacre of physicians traveling to Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus, and they murdered in the basest way the prisoners from Operation Yiftach. Why did they fabricate the massacre in Deir Yassin? Through neutralizing politically and socially the associates of Etzel and Lehi, as "murderers of women and children" they prevented their coming into the sanctified community that callied itself "the silver platter." Also, with the aid of the mark of Cain that Meir Payil and his comrades imprinted on the forehead of the "dissidents", they not only secured for Ben Gurion and his subordinates exclusive rule over Israel from 1948 to 1977, but also made themselves the exclusive successors in the formation of Israel's political universe, and in the social and cultural sectors, as well. They appointed each other to senior positions, granted themselves prizes, gave themselves titles, wrote songs of praise about themselves (Haim Hefer), wrote histories of Israel's wars, and taught them in the IDF (Meir Payil) and, generally speaking, they have ruled over the state of Israel. Why didn't they go out to aid the passengers in the Hadassah Convoy, as one might expect? Because they weren't really military men, but a political militia whose objective was to rule over the defense establishment, enroute to ruling over the country that was to be established, and because their commanders were not selected according to qualifications, but by virtue of their loyalty. Loyalty is always the norm of the "Mafia" and of a corrupt political establishment. They instilled this norm into the defense establishment that they devised and in the state of Israel over which they ruled. They prevented the massacre at Ein Zaytun from entering the Israeli collective memory So that Ben Gurion would not have an excuse to dismantle the Palmach and so that awareness of the massacre would not blacken the Israeli political left wing. Yigal Alon was the commander of the operation. If the massacre had been reported widely, he would have been dismissed from every post, even before establishment of the state of Israel. The left wing appointed Alon to succeed Ben Gurion and caused the Kibbutzim to rule over the state of Israel that was about to be established. And meanwhile Prof. Anita Shapira, an historian recruited by the left wing, fifty years after the fact, omitted this black stain from the biography she published on Alon, since publication of the massacre in Ein Zaytun was liable to harm her life's work: a song of praise to the Zionist left wing. --------------------------------- These three events are black writings on the wall, and whoever has read these things has needed to neutralize the damaging process in the IDF and the state of Israel at an early stage. Prime minister and defense minister David Ben Gurion knew all the facts. It seems that he did not understand their significance. And this, in and of itself, is very serious. Perhaps he understood but did not act to uproot the seed of law breaking, as it was possible to expect from him, and this is the worst of all. In the first fifteen years from establishment of the state of Israel Ben Gurion was, with a small break, at the end of 1953 and in 1954, both prime minister and defense minister. Beyond these two key posts, he was also the undisputed leader of the state of Israel. In these years Ben Gurion built Israel's defense establishment and he had decisive influence over the development of its defense culture. Ben Gurion, who spoke in high terms about recogning that Israel is a distinguished people, was mainly responsible for the corrupt defense culture, whose main contribution was concealing flaws and not drawing conclusions. In order to substantiate our black thesis about Israel's defense culture, there follows a description of the manipulations of Israelis relating to the history of the War of Independence. Netanel Lorch An example of a consciously non-objective researcher, is Colonel Dr. Netanel Lorch. His book "The History Of The War Of Independence", which was published ten years after the war, and sold fifty thousand copies, until now, and has been a sort of "official history", has contributed more than any other book to the un-knowing and misunderstanding of Israel's War of Independence. This book was practically the first source for most of the research studies and books that came after it. Lorch also lectured on this topic in universities, in IDF courses and other places, and the book's contents have been assimilated by every Israeli interested in the war. In the 1980s I had a confrontation with him in a discussion on methodologies of research into the War of Independence, before cadets in the IAF pilots' course, and their commanders. Lorch said baseless things there, and when I countered his claims in the presence of the cadets, he replied almost weeping, but he did not relate to the content of the things I said, and he did not try to refute them. The cadets in the course and the commanders reprimanded me for hurting such a respected figure. And from this incident I learned that knowing the truth was not important to Lorch and his audiences, "the best of Israeli youth", people who will head the country's defense, economic, and political establishments. What was important to them was only Lorch's myth as an authority on the War of Independence. These reactions clarified for me a little the significance of the gap between the prestige of the Israeli Air Force after the Six Day War and the flaws in its functioning in the Yom Kippur War, and the failures and accidents it suffered from time to time. In Prof. Benny Morris's book on the problem of the Palestinian refugees (written at the end of the 1980s) 1 I found many errors, not with respect to his research but in connection to steps in the war. when I confronted Morris about his errors, he said to me: "That is what Lorch wrote." For example: In the English version of "The Birth Of The Problem Of Palestinian Refugees 1947-1949" which appeared in 1987, Prof. Morris wrote that the village of Safed was attacked on "January 9-10." When the first three volumes of my series of books on "The History Of The War Of Independence" appeared in 1989, Prof. Morris interviewed me for The Jerusalem Post. I told him that he erred, and that the attack went on for only half a day, from dawn till noon on January 9, and half a day is not two days. He replied: "That is what Lorch wrote." Nonetheless, this error was not corrected in the Hebrew edition that was published in the "Ofakim" series of Am Oved publishers in 1991 (page 50), edited by Eli Shaltiel and translated by Arnon Magen. If the translator and editor had read the second volume of my book, in which I described the details of the battle in the village of Safed, they would not have repeated the error. Morris also erred when he connected the battle of the Hulda Convoy with the battles of the Yehiam Convoy and Nevi Daniel, in which, according to him, the Arabs succeeded "in a series of ambushes" in destroying most of the armored vehicle fleet of the Jewish settlement" (page 51). Arabs did not ambush the Hulda Convoy as a convoy and did not destroy its vehicles. As the reader can learn from a detailed description of the battle in volume 4 of my books. In another place in his book Morris writes that "more than one hundred Haganah men fell in these ambushes" (page 92). Forty seven soldiers were killed in the battle of the Yehiam Convoy, fifteen in the battle of Nevi Daniel and seventeen in the battle of the Hulda Convoy. A total of seventy nine. These precise numbers were at the disposal of Morris, Shaltiel and Magen, and they did not make use of them in the Hebrew edition. To that extent they adhered to Lorch's historiography. Lorch's book is one of the causes for the superficial military and defense thinking in Israeli culture, inside the defense system and outside it. Most of the journalists and teachers in Israel, including university teachers, only know Lorch's War of Independence, and they teach this war and write about it. The superficiality is pronounced not only in the quality of their military research but also in the quality of the defense system. This is an example of pseudo-scientific research that has taken control over the official research systems and the institutions of higher learning, and does not permit living space for independent research. In September 1989, Lorch wrote a foreword to the amended edition of his book. Most of this foreword is a defense brief against the criticism that I expressed about his research in the first three volumes of my books on the War of Independence (which were published that same year), and excerpts from which were published in newspapers before then) and in many articles that I have written. Lorch declared that there is no objectivity, in particular if a historian deals with events in which he took part, and he quoted the historian Mark Bloch: "if is enough if his statements will be honest, and out of comparison with many honest statements, ultimately the truth comes out." And this is precisely what I claim, from the opposite side. Lorch is imbedded in the heart of the military establishment. He was an active participant in the War of Independence, he was an adjutant of the Chief of Staff Yigal Yadin and afterward headed the history branch in IDF General Headquarters (later History Department). Personal loyalty is one of the characteristics of those that survive in their posts. Because of personal loyalty it is very hard for Lorch to be objective. And so that it will be clear, I do not disparage Lorch's research because of the posts he filled in the War of Independence and after it. I only explain that one of the reasons for the flaws in his research is the natural inclination not to spit in the well from which he drank until the end of his days. He didn't expose flaws or express criticism. And it makes no difference if the distortions in Lorch's book were written honestly or with lack of honesty. I know that for a man who completed "forty years of service to the state and to the state on the way" (such is written in the foreword to the new edition of his book), who was an adjutant and headquarters man with the rank of Colonel, who worked for seventeen years in the foreign ministry and was secretary of the Knesset for eleven years, it is hard for such a figure to write an objective book, not only during his service, but also after he went out on pension. In October 1995 Lorch admitted, in a newspaper interview, that his research was defective and his book flawed: "I was adjutant for the Chief of Staff Yigal Yadin. In 1951 I asked to resign from the post. He let me choose the next post. a There was an unmanned space in the department for battle conclusions, in other words, the whole department was unmanned. b I said that I do not accept on myself to learn and teach the conclusions, that is something everyone will do according to his own method. I accept on myself the writing of an objective history, to the extent that is possible." According to him, research projects were not undertaken or testimonies collected in the two years that passed between the War of Independence and his appointment, and he also did not collect testimonies, because there was no apparatus for that. He gathered men around him and pored through the archives of the IDF that were in disarray. Lorch: "In the IDF archive I found an unbelievable mess. It was not possible to find anything… It emerged that men were discharged and they took archival material home with them." He was given the task to write the history of the War of Independence in "a state book", that was supposed to appear toward the fifth Independence Day. Lorch claimed, as he admits, that he did not have enough time for that, but he accepted the mission. "I started to write according to the material at hand, out of clear knowledge that there were great lacunae and misproportions." There were pressures on him from every direction. "The Palmach men it seems decided not to cooperate with me because I was identified with the army (those discharged from the British army), and even the person directly in charge over me, the head of the instruction department, Yitzhak Rabin, did not respond" when asked for comments on the draft of his book. c Defense minister, David Ben Gurion, appointed Lieutenant General (res.) Yakov Dori (the ill chief of staff of the War of Independence) and Col. Yisrael Bar (then a close associate of Ben Gurion, who after some years was found guilty of spying and died in jail) to supervise Lorch. It should be understood in and of itself that with such supervision Lorch could not write objective or honest history about the War of Independence. It seems that Lorch not only reconciled himself with the anti-research circumstances in the IDF history branch, but even elevated them to the rank of principle. His successors in the IDF have followed his example. Lorch was chief historian of the IDF for four years. In January 1955 he left the IDF and moved to the foreign ministry, and while a foreign ministry staffer he published his manuscript as a book (in whose preparation the IDF had invested many resources). "If it was permitted to me I would have built the foundation before the rafters, completed collection of the material before I began to write it. I started to write not because I was prepared, but because they imposed the writing on me", d Lorch has testified. On the question of why he published a defective book, he replied: "because I did not have a complete thing…there were lies that we lied for international reasons. In Operation Yoav we claimed that there was a convoy to the Negev and the Egyptians opened fire on it. The truth is that the Egyptians were deep asleep and there was a need to wake them up almost by force and cause them to open fire so that we would have an excuse to start the operation. In operation Ovda, to occupy Eilat, every child that looks at my map that shows the Negev brigade crossing the Negev in a straight line, understands that it is impossible to pass along this route, certainly not in a vehicle. On its way to Eilat the IDF crossed the international border, and we wanted to conceal that." 2 Lorch therefore admitted that he was not loyal to one of the basic principles of scientific research, and thereby demonstrated that he should not deal in research, to publish scientific books and teach these subjects in institutes of higher learning. The university heads, the departments and the intellectual circles that have permitted him to work in teaching among them, are partners in the deception. If Lorch himself admitted that there are lies in his book and it has no value as a book of history, who am I to disagree? I will pause on one of the defects in this book. In the foreword to the new edition Lorch wrote: "I willingly accepted a restriction of consideration for the feelings of bereaved families." And indeed there is no war, campaign or battle without bereaved families. Whoever considers their feelings can be a nice, easygoing person, but certainly is not an objective researcher of war. Because of this restriction (and not only because of it) Lorch did not describe events as they happened. His consideration for bereaved families certainly does not conform with the condition that Peres has provided and will exhibit "forbearance from value judgments and subjective preferences." a As an example of his approach, Lorch brings up what he wrote about the battle of the 35. He accepts the claim of his friend, the mother of Danny Mass, commander of the force that "he erred in consideration of time and distance and he went on his way at a time that again offered no chance to reach the Gush before night." According to Lorch the mother told him: "What did they want from my Danny? Ultimately he was only twenty two." It seems that Lorch's friendship with the Mass family and the restriction that he imposed on himself, not only interfered with his describing the events as they really happened, but also prevented him from understanding the influence of this traumatic incident on the continuation of the war, in Gush Etzion and in other areas. He also did not understand that the last contribution of the fallen to their motherland was investigation of the mistakes on account of which they fell, including their own mistakes. In the old edition and the new edition of Lorch's book the episode of the 35 (in the chapter "Etzion Village and The Mountain Platoon) is described in almost the same words. He wrote that the 35 were sent to Gush Etzion against the background of the attack on the Gush on January 14, 1948. To this attack, during which the battle of Hirbet Zecharia occurred (a counter-attack, in daylight, of a Palmach platoon against an Arab brigade force, that ended with countering the mission of the Arab force and dozens of killed on its side,) 4 Lorch devotes only five and a half lines, and it is hard not to get the impression that he did not understand the importance of the battle of Hirbet Zecharia. In this context, later, Ben Gurion quoted the words of an Arab Sheikh from the Negev:" If there had been two or three more clashes like this then the country would have been pacified." 5 If Lorch did not understand that this was the greatest tactical achievement of a Palmach unit in the War of Independence, what indeed did he understand? Lorch wrote that after the attack on January 14 "Etzion Village, lacked weapons and ammunition, and shouted for reinforcement. Convoys were mobilized only under the supervision of British escorts, and transporting weapons in them was in fact impossible." It was not only Etzion Village that shouted for reinforcement. There were in the Gush another three Kibutzim, Mesuot Yitzhak, Ein Tzurim, and Rabadim, whose situation was also difficult. But it was not because of the shouts of these Kibbutzim that the 35 were sent to Gush Etzion. The 36 were sent because of the telegrams that Gush commander Uzi Narkiss sent, in which he requested, not reinforcement and ammunition, but medical equipment for the wounded.. Here are three telegrams that Narkiss sent to the commander of the Palmach sixth battalion, Tzvi Zamir, and to the commander of the "Machmash" battalion of the Etzioni brigade, Shalom Dror: "There are three badly wounded in Rabadim. It is impossible to treat them. Send an ambulance quickly." "If an ambulance is not sent to the Gush the badly wounded will die. There is no medic. What about Tzvabaner? a Try to send personal bandages." "Send answer quickly regarding the ambulance. I am waiting for an answer and the wounded are going to die." 6 The commander of Palmach company 8, Eliahu Sela (Ranana), some of whose soldiers were among the 35 told me after thirty one years: "The telegrams and communications from Gush Etzion were hysterical and they made a stern impression in Jerusalem." These telegrams were one of the main reasons for the haste in preparing for the journey of the 35. Yigal Yadin, head of the operations branch in the general headquarters, and in fact chief of staff of the War of Independence, told me: "Narkiss's telegrams made a stern impression in Tel Aviv." 7 In his autobiography Narkiss has admitted: "I started to 'bombard' the communications network with demands for assistance." 8 It seems that Lorch has considered not only the bereaved mothers but also the senior commanders in active service and the posts they staffed, after their discharge from the IDF, in senior jobs in the civilian sector, and who could compensate him because of his loyalty, or harm him because of criticism. If he described the facts as experienced he would have risked a confrontation with Uzi Narkiss, who, in the 1950s, was interested in concealing the affair, so that his military career would not be harmed. Inasmuch as Lorch abstained from such a confrontation, he aided Narkiss in advancing up the IDF chain of command and in public service. I therefore claim that Lorch is one of those responsible for the failures and oversights on the part of Narkiss in the Six Day War, and the raid on Karema (March 1968), which was a catalyst along the path of the El Fatah organization, and to its status as a leading element in the Arab world, and the path of Yasser Arafat to a position of leader of the Palestinian state on the way. In 1983 I recounted the story of the 35 in the newspaper Davar in three parts. In these articles the composition of the operational order that Danny Mass received from his commander Tzvi Zamir, was published for the first time: "You must quickly reach Etzion Village and stay in contact with Uzi (Narkiss). In light of the circumstances determine how much time the units need to be in the place. Try hard to return quickly. Details about this were reported on the wireless. The medical equipment that you are carrying is designated for offering aid to the badly wounded of Gush Etzion, which due to lack of transportation have not been transferred to Jerusalem. While located in the place patrol one of the bridges that you find there. Halt the connection between Bethlehem and Hebron. Inform me when the bridge will be prepared, and I will inform you of the time of the action." 9 From this composition of the order it is possible to conclude that the intention was not to send reinforcements to Gush Etzion but to bring plasma and medical instruments to the wounded. Danny Mass was also supposed to check the possibility of blowing up a bridge on the road between Bethlehem and Hebron, but this check was not urgent, and the 35 were not sent in haste on account of that. A similar conclusion emerges from the testimonies of the men that took part in Danny Mass's first attempt and his orders to reach the Gush (In his book, Lorch does not mention this attempt, which failed.), and from the testimonies of the three men that departed together with the 35 and did not continue with them, but returned to Hartuv. Half a day before the 35 departed on their last path, ambulances of the British army transferred the wounded from Gush Etzion to hospitals in Jerusalem. when the 35 departed, on January 15, at 11:05 PM, there were already no wounded in Gush Etzion. There was no urgent need of plasma and medical instruments in the Gush. It is reasonable to assume that the order for departure of the 35 to Gush Etzion was not cancelled because of a lack of coordination between the command centers. Lorch does not note this, even though the documents are open for examination in the IDF archives and even though I wrote about this five years before the updated edition of his book appeared. It seems that it was unpleasant for him to reveal that the 35 were sent on a mission for which there was no justification, and expose the failure of those that approved the mission: commander of the third battalion, Tzvi Zamir, commander of the Etzioni brigade, Yisrael Amir, the party responsible for the Jerusalem district in Palmach headquarters, Yitzhak Rabin, Haganah operations officer, Yigal Yadin, and the head of its national command center, Yisrael Galili. The senior Haganah commanders and commanders of the units that operated in the vicinity of Jerusalem at the beginning of 1948, who are responsible for the disaster of the 35, built a concept whereby immunity is useful for national morale. They invested much emotional energy and more than a little financial resources in defending themselves, and thereby harmed their functioning even more, at the time, and also in years following. Because when the failures were examined these men took pains that others not expose facts and refute myths, lest accusations about the affair of the 35 be thrown in their faces. Netanel Lorch loyally served them when he wrote about the affair of the 35 and about other events in the War of Independence. In the foreword to his book he complains about me, because I called him "an historian beholden to the establishment." Indeed, this is my opinion of him. On the television program "Dilemmas With Ilana Dayan" that was broadcast on the second television channel on October 14, 1995, and whose topic was ethics in the army and in defense generally, general (res.) Avigdor Ben Gal said that if a soldier from his unit was killed by friendly fire he would not tell the truth to the bereaved mother, because he would not want her to have the feeling that her son died in vain. The journalist of military topics, Ron Ben Yishai, said in that same interview that if he was aware of such a story , he would silence it. Both of them, therefore, would not publicize the truth. Both Ben Gal and Ben Yishai have not understood that in most cases this truth will be reported to the parents, and that the lie would depress them even more and undermine their trust in the IDF. Uri Ben Ari The breach that the Yom Kippur War instigated in Israel's defense culture motivated a process of shattering of defense myths and the slaughtering of sacred cows. Most of the military leaders of that failed war served in the Palmach before and during the War of Independence. They reached the defense leadership thanks to this service and to the culture of myth, that provided them with immunity against exposure of failures: Defense minister Moshe Dayan in 1941 commanded Palmach company B (in which Yitzhak Rabin served as a new recruit); chief of staff David Elazar commanded a platoon, a company and a battalion in the Harel brigade in the War of Independence; In that same brigade, Shmuel Gonen (Gorodish) served as a soldier, and was commanding general of the south in 1973; Commanding general of the north, Yitzhak Hofi (Haka), was commander of a company in the Yiftach brigade, in which head of army intelligence Eliahu Zaira also served; in 5708 (1948) the head of the Mossad, Tzvi Zamir, commanded the Palmach sixth battalion; minister Yigal Alon, among the closest to prime minister Golda Meir in October 1973 and one of those responsible for the failure of the government echelon, was Palmach commander, and the list goes on. The collapse of Israel's defense doctrine in the Yom Kippur War and the collapse of IDF units in the battle field exposed the damage that the Palmach defense culture has caused to the state of Israel and its security. For example: splitting up the armor, infantry and artillery corps, which contradicts every military theory and the teachings of military history, has prevented the IDF from the possibility of conducting integrated battles. "Ignorance Is Power", said George Orwell. In October 1973 the ignorance of the leaders of the Palmach generation, of all things, gave power to the Egyptian and Syrian military leaders. Most Israelis have refused to see the facts and concede on the prejudices that have become sanctified over the years. After that war, the author started to research the army experience and the war, and in any case he must expose facts and shatter myths. In the thirty four years that have passed since then, other researchers have arisen that criticize Israel defense myths: Prof. Benny Morris, general Doron Rubin, brigadier general Amtzia (Patzi) Hen, col. Dr. Emanuel Wald, col. Dany Wolf Rahav, col. Aryeh Amit (Tefer), col. Shlomo Baum, Evyatar Ben Tzedef, col. Avi Lior, Dr. Amikam Tzur, Ofer Shalach, Yosi Bloom Halevy and Dr. Michael Brunstein, are the most prominent among these people, who are not one group, and between some of whom are sharp disagreements on political and military subjects. The main damage from the process of shattering defense myths has of course been to the Palmach myth. Parties from the social elites that came out of Palmach have responded to this erosion of the flint in their quarry by producing movies about the Palmach, that have been broadcast on Israeli television as documentaries, by allocating much money to research studies whose conclusions are known in advance, by initiating panel discussions and by publishing books. And this is the message of these movies, research studies, panel discussions and books: we were marvelous, we were wonderful. We did have some mistakes, but if not for us the state of Israel would not have been established. Even if there is truth to this claim, one should remember that the men of Palmach took pains that there would not be others that would perform the task because those others were liable to place the emphasis on the mistakes and remove the ray of light from the Palmach's collective membership. The arrogant style of the generation that failed in the wars of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and in the days of whose leadership many sectors in Israel became morally corrupted (and in particular the defense system became morally corrupted as we learned in the Second Lebanon War), is not acceptable to many Israelis whose personalities crystallized after the Yom Kippur War and in the days of the First Lebanon War and the Intifada. Building Palmach House from funds of the Housing Ministry and the attack of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin against state comptroller, Miriam Ben Porat, who exposed this scandal, were climactic points in the process of alienation between the generations of the state and the Palmach generation. In Operation Kadesh, in 1956, Uri Ben Ari was commander of armor brigade number 7, that acted contrary to the general headquarters plan, in the main sector of Abu Agila and destroyed the main Egyptian deployment, after an infantry brigade that division commander, Yehuda Wallach, put into action failed in its mission closer to the border. On account of that failure, the general of the command sector Asaf Simhoni dismissed Wallach from his post a. The success of Ben Ari's 7 brigade caused "the armor revolution" in the IDF. Since then (until 1973), armor thinking has ruled the Israeli ground forces. The IDF thought in terms of armor alone, and reached the Six Day war with the concept of "blitzkrieg" in its Israeli version (which is different from the original German version): deep breakthroughs of armor formations, without integration of infantry and without an integrated battle (see the battles of Israel Tal's division between Khan Yunis and El Arish on the first day of that war). Men of armor took control over most of the senior command positions, and have based the future battle field on armor alone. This concept is not appropriate for a battle against a fighting enemy, but for a pursuit of tanks after enemy soldiers who are struck by shock, and it is based on the assumption that the Israeli soldier will always have preference over the Arab soldier, because of his unique cultural-genetic qualities, and that the Arab armies will never succeed in surprising the IDF and defeating it on the battle field. The father of this racist and erroneous concept was the chief of staff during the Six Day War, Yitzhak Rabin, and his partner in it was Yisrael Tal, commander of the armor corps in that same war, and deputy chief of staff in the Yom Kippur War. This concept took a high toll from the IDF and the nation of Israel in the Yom Kippur War, and it has continued to collect this price since then through the flight of the IDF from South Lebanon in 2000 and the Second Lebanon War in 2006. In 1973 the purely armor formations did not defeat the Egyptian infantry, which was equipped with personal anti-tank missiles. In fact, of all things, Israeli tanks fled from the battle. The Ben Ari revolution in the IDF was one of the reasons for the collapse of Israel's defense doctrine on October 8,1973. 10 Let's return to the 1950s. After his success in Operation Kadesh, Ben Ari was appointed commander of the armor corps, and many saw him as a future chief of staff. His advancement was held back because of an incident of corruption which is called in Israeli folklore "The sack of sugar affair." In the Israeli Defense Lexicon of Eitan Haber and Ze'ev Schiff a it states that Ben Ari "was forced to resign from the IDF because he averted his eyes some years previous, from an incident of corruption of one of his commanders." 11 "Averting the eyes" means granting legitimacy to an incident of corruption and encouragement of similar incidents. In other words, Ben Ari was one of the parties to the moral corruption of the IDF already in its earliest years, and Ben Gurion, who identified this danger, dismissed him from the IDF. Before the Six Day war Alon and Rabin convinced prime minister and defense minister Levy Eshkol to give Ben Ari a second chance, and in June 1967, he commanded brigade 10, formerly Harel, in the Jerusalem sector. In October 1973 he was appointed second in command on the southern front. Then commanding general of the southern command Shmuel Gonen (Gorodish) and his comrades worked to advance him from the rank of colonel to the rank of brigadier general, during the battles of the Yom Kippur War, and his image as the most successful field commander in the IDF was not harmed. In 1994 he published his book "After Me". Uri Ben Ari does not exhibit the ambitiousness of a military historian. On the other hand, he has the ambition of a military intellectual. He has published in the newspapers many articles of analysis on military subjects, and has appeared much in the electronic media. His book "After Me" that won him the Yitzhak Sadeh prize for military literature in 1995, will definitely be a source for historians and teachers to rely on. "After Me" was a must read book in the IDF officers school, and its cadets prepared essays based on it in the area of battle heritage and military thinking. I therefore think that there is merit in reading it with scrutiny and comparing what is written in it to what is known to the researcher. In this book, Ben Ari has described some battles that took place between the end of March and the beginning of May 1948, in which he took part as platoon commander and which "made an important contribution, perhaps even decisive, to deciding the fate of Jerusalem in the War of Independence", as he says. 12 This was a fateful arena and time in the War of Independence. Ben Ari was then company commander in an elite battalion (the fourth battalion "haportzim") and in an elite brigade (Harel) that was part of the elite Palmach formation of the Hebrew settlement. But the truth is that because of the flawed functioning of the Palmach commanders, including Ben Ari, in securing the road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the US pulled back its support for the establishment of the state of Israel, and only the western part of Jerusalem was under Israeli control in the first nineteen years of the state. Reports of the withdrawal of the US from its support for the establishment of the state, because of the weakness of the Jews, particularly in the Jerusalem sector, came pouring in from all directions a in February and March 1948. The political analyst, Robert Allen, said in a radio broadcast from the US, that American secretary of defense James Forrestal, was trying to convince senators to concede on the partition plan and proposed asking the British to settle a quarter million Jews, who were Shoah survivors, in Kenya (which was under British control).13 The journalists Joseph and Stewart Alsop wrote in the Washington Post about two pessimistic scenarios that were expected in the discussions of the US National Security Council: a. The Arabs will expel the Jews to the coastal strip, where they cannot exist. b. The Arabs will begin to annihilate the Jews of Palestine, and the US will be dragged into a direct military involvement in the Arab Jewish conflict and will endanger its petroleum resources, and mankind will be put in danger of a third world war. Gideon Rafael, a member of the Jewish Agency delegation to the UN, reported to the secretary of the "Committee On The Situation" of the Hebrew settlement, Ze'ev Sherap, about a conversation a friend had with American secretary of state, general George Marshall: "He (Marshall) expressed disappointment with the effectiveness of Haganah forces .b Until the attack of the Arabs (the Americans) thought that the Haganah force was sufficient to frighten the Arabs so they will not attack the Jews, or at least that in the first attack Haganah will deal the Arabs a decisive defeat and they will not dare to continue with attacks." 14 Robert McClintock, an American state department official, wrote that the success of the Arab aggression is a decisive factor in changing the American approach, and he proposed establishing a regime with a UN trusteeship in Palestine. 15 In the UN Security Council the US representative Warren Austin proposed establishing a committee that will determine if the happenings in Palestine endanger world peace. 16 Secretary of state Marshall informed Austin that president Truman was inclined not to support establishment of a Jewish state. 17 Austin informed the UN Security Council about the withdrawal of US support for the establishment of a Jewish state on March 19. The book "After Me" was written forty five years after these happenings and Ben Ari managed until then to fill very senior army posts. It was possible to expect that he would analyze in his book the tactical matters in which he took part and their strategic results, and to detail the lessons that were learned from them so that the commanders of the 1990s will not repeat the mistakes that he and his comrades made. But "After Me" only has stories of heroism, in most of which Ben Ari plays a starring role. The first battle described in this book is the battle of "The Hulda Convoy", after which Hebrew Jerusalem was cut off from its supply base, Tel Aviv, not because the Arabs blocked the road, but because the Jews already did not dare to travel on it in secured convoys, as they had done for four months. The Hulda Convoy battle took place after Palmach men fired machine guns against an Arab bus that was transporting workers from Latrun to Masmit, contrary to the agreement between Haganah and Arabs of the surroundings. 19 Consequently, Arab military forces from the surroundings came to the aid of the people under attack. Ben Ari and his soldiers came to rescue the Palmach squad that was surrounded by the Arabs. All the commanders in the sector knew about the situation of the men who were surrounded. Their commander, Yoram Tarbes, asked on the communications equipment for immediate assistance and threatened collective suicide. The assistance did not arrive and the men of the squad blew themselves up inside their armored vehicle. c On account of the shock, the convoy did not continue on its way to Jerusalem, and its commanders reported to the Haganah command center in Tel Aviv that the road was blocked. This was a false report. The Hulda Convoy was the first convoy that left the coastal plane for Jerusalem and did not arrive there, after four months of fighting. The Arabs did not block the road but the shock of four men: Ben Ari – the platoon commander; Shaul Yaffeh – the brigade commander of the route on the road to Jerusalem; Yosef Tabenkin – commander of the Palmach fourth battalion; and Amos Horev – deputy commander of the sixth battalion. The Hulda Convoy affair refutes the story of fighting values that the Palmach bequeathed to the IDF: performance of the missions, brotherhood of soldiers, rescue of wounded and truthful reports. In his book, Ben Ari has ignored most of the events whose details were revealed in the fourth volume of my book on the War of Independence, a three years before "After Me" was published. The last battle described in Ben Ari's book is the battle over the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Palmach fourth battalion, in which Ben Ari served as company commander, was attached to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, and afterward abandoned control of the road there and returned to its base in Kiryat Anavim, contrary to the orders of Jerusalem commander David Shaltiel. No other force of Haganah replaced it, and the Jewiish Quarter fell into the hands of the Arab/Jordanian Legion. In Ben Ari's book there is no soul searching regarding this matter; there are only meditations on the heroism of the Palmachniks that assured establishment of the state as it were without weapons and without preparation. In the chapter "The Bitter Taste Of Failure – The Battle For Nebi Samuel", Ben Ari has not noted that he was the main party responsible for this failure. He pins the blame on his comrade Haim Poznanski, who was killed in that battle. On the other hand, one also does not find here claims against the senior commanders, brigade commander, Yitzhak Rabin or his battalion commander Yosef Tabenkin. All during the battle, Yitzhak Rabin did not leave his command center in the Reich Inn in the Beit Ha Kerem neighborhood in Jerusalem, and Yosef Tabenkin stationed his command group on the Jerusalem-Motza road. From these places it was impossible for the brigade commander and the battalion commander to exercise command over the battle. The battle for Nebi Samuel b was the essential element in "the plan for a northern move" that Ben Gurion's advisors, Yitzhak Sadeh and Yochanan Ratner, contemplated, after news about the disaster of the Hulda Convoy and the false reports on its details reached Tel Aviv. Sadeh and Ratner planned to break through the Arab deployment to the north of Jerusalem and take control over Nebi Samuel, over the Jerusalem – Ramallah road and over Mt. Scopus, in order not to permit the Arabs to encircle Jerusalem. 20 In the order that the commander of the fourth battalion, Yosef Tabenkin, received from Yitzhak Rabin, the objective of operation "Yebusi" was defined as so: "Separation of Jerusalem from enemy forces to the north and north west, and creation of a link with Neve Yakov" The missions of the battalion were destruction of the village of Beit Ichsa and capture of the village of Nebi Samuel. 21 Ben Ari's book notes that the objective of the operation was "blocking Jerusalem against enemy forces from two directions, by occupation of Nebi Samuel, Shuafat and Sheikh Jarach." 22 The battalion commander, Yosef Tabenkin, and the operations officer, Eliahu Sela (Ranana) planned the moves of the fourth battalion a thus: at the first stage of the battle the company of Mordechai Ben Porat was to occupy Beit Ichsa (contrary to the directives of the command center of the Harel brigade, whereby this battalion had to attack the two villages simultaneously). 23 Haim (Poza) Poznanski's company was to be located on the ridge over Beit Ichsa, as a reserve for Ben Porat and will aid in case of need, and Ben Ari's company was to be located in the north western sector and block the road between Bido and Beit Ichsa against Arab reinforcements. At the second stage, after occupation of Beit Ichsa, Poznanski's company was to attack Nebi Samuel, with the aid of mortars and Davidkas that will reach the area of the action through occupied Beit Ichsa, and Ben Ari's company was to be located west of Nebi Smuel and on the Nebi Smuel – Bido – Beit Ichsa road, and will be a reserve for Poznanski's company and a second wave for the occupation of Nebi Smuel in case of need, b and will also block Arab reinforcements that will try to reach Beit Ichsa and Nebi Smuel. The battalion commander Tabenkin and the operations officer Sela stationed themselves on the main road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, above lower Motza. Although from there they could not control the moves of the battalion or coordinate the forces. Occupation of Beit Ichsa was completed only at 2:00 AM, even though its inhabitants fled immediately and did not resist the occupiers. Tabenkin and Sela remained on the main road also at this stage. Despite the late hour Poznanski and his soldiers went on their way immediately after occupation of Beit Ichsa, and reached Hirbet Lamon, a distance of around eight hundred meters from Nebi Samuel, around 3:00 AM. Poznanski thought that he could occupy the village under cover of darkness and without assistance, as he had occupied, that same week, the villages of Saris and Beit Surik. On the communications equipment Poznanski requested approval from Tabenkin to attack. Tabenkin ordered him to wait for Ben Ari. Ben Ari, and his soldiers arrived at Hirbet Lamon only at 5:30 AM after the sun rose. Tabenkin had constant wireless contact with Ben Ari, and knew that Ben Ari had not adhered to the schedule, but he did not mention this to Poznanski and did not change the plans, which were dependent on the precise execution of mission by Ben Ari's company. According to the scout, Noam Ranan, who served as a soldier in Ben Ari's company, the company went out on its mission from Kiryat Anavim to Castel in the last round of transportation, and they started to march from Castel, around a half hour after Poznanski's company went on its way. Ben Ari's company walked around eight hundred meters to Sheikh Abed El Aziz, on the ridge of Castel, a distance of around two and a half kilometers from the target determined for it, and they stayed there for around three hours doing nothing. 24 After occupation of Beit Ichsa, between 2:00 AM and 3:00 AM, Ben Ari sent a platoon, with Yitzhak (Izzy) Rahav in command, to the ridge near Beit Surik, to guard his advancement and the area of action with machine guns. Only afterward did Rahav and his soldiers take positions on the ridge, and the company went down, on a very difficult path, to Wadi Luza. They then reached Ein Luza and advanced from there to the target. "The walk down the hard road was one of the reasons for our late arrival", Ben Ari related in 1961 to researchers of the IDF history department. He did not elaborate on the other reasons, and did not explain why he chose this path (Poznanski and his soldiers walked on the natural path, that was used by the village's inhabitants). 25 In "After Me" he wrote: "we erred in the last branching out and we chose the incorrect path. It is possible that the heavy darkness that hung over the lower part of the gorges and valleys misled us." 26 In the abovementioned testimony to researchers of the IDF history department Ben Ari contradicts what is written in his book: "the version that justifies the deployment of Poza's company, whereby heavy darkness prevailed on this morning and dissipated at the moment of attack, is not correct. This was a clear morning and we saw the whole territory clearly." 27 Noam Ranan, a scout that knew the lay of the land better than his commander, has related that the walking was indeed very difficult, along a path that scouts and field men don't walk on, but the choice of this path was not a mistake and the company did not get lost on the way. 28 It is reasonable to assume that the fate of Jerusalem in the War of Independence would have been different if Ben Ari had reached his target at 3:00 AM, and Poznanski had occupied Nebi Samuel under cover of darkness. The distance between Beit Ichsa and Hirbet Lamon is only one and a half kilometers, and Hirbet Lamon is on the map and prominent in the field. If Poznanski and Ben Ari left their target after occupation of Beit Ichsa, why did Poznanski reach his target after less than an hour and Ben Ari only after three and a half hours? It seems that Poznanski hastened to go out on the mission, while Ben Ari went out only after he was certain that Beit Ichsa was occupied and after he secured the route of his movement, and so he lost (or gained) at least an hour. Poznanski, the leading edge, quickly arrived at the target because he chose the Hirbet Tolma road. This road is long, as the bird flies, a little more than the path that Ben Ari chose, but easier to walk on. Ben Ari, who was aided by the scouts of the sixth battalion, forced them to walk from Sheikh Abed El Aziz to Hirbet Lamon through Wadi Luza and Hirbet Ein Luza. This short path is very difficult to walk on, and Ben Ari and his soldiers hiked it in two and a half hours approximately. Judging by Ben Ari's functioning in the first attack on Saris (that failed) and in the attempts to occupy Beit Machsir, a it is possible to assume that he tried hard to refrain from risks, and it seems that in this matter there was agreement between him and the battalion commander Tabenkin, who followed him via the communications equipment and did not come out against his moves. Also years later, Tabenkin did not say that Ben Ari did not perform his missions appropriately. According to Rabin's order the fourth battalion was supposed to attack Nebi Samuel in the middle of the night; perhaps Ben Ari hoped (and perhaps Tabenkin also hoped) that if he would reach the target at dawn the attack would be cancelled, and so he would fulfill only the order and not the mission. Ben Ari and Poznanski met on the road between Beit Ichsa and Nebi Smuel, not far from Hirbet Lamon, at 5:30 AM. Ben Ari then proposed to Tabenkin, on the communications equipment, that the mission be cancelled. According to Ben Ari Tabenkin intended to cancel it, but Poznanski breached his order: "I turned toward the commander of company B, Poznanski), who had stood until a moment before beside me and heard the decision of the battalion commander (Tabenkin). To my surprise the commander of company B started to run toward his company. 'company B commander', I called out, ' the battalion commander wants you on the communications equipment!' The man stopped for a moment, turned around and called back, 'Uri I did not hear him (Tabenkin), tell him that I have already gone out to attack and there is no communications connection between us. It would seem that my communications equipment is broken. See you later' " 29 Meir Zora, a battalion commander in the Etzioni brigade in 1948 and later an IDF general, joined Poznanski's company in this battle and was attached to it. Contrary to what Ben Ari wrote, Zora has related that there was a conversation on the communications equipment between the battalion commander Tabenkin and Poznanski before the latter left to attack, and that the battalion commander told Poznanski: "Do what you believe, I am very very worried today." Zora understood from this conversation, that Tabenkin left the decision to Poznanski. 30 Yoel Ben Dov, one of Poznanski's soldiers, has testified that he heard his commander say to Tabenkin on the communications equipment: "going up to attack, I hope". Squad commander Rafael Shefer, who also heard this conversation, has said: "We understood that Yosef was leaving the decision to Poza." Placing blame for the failure on the company commander that executed the mission and was killed in the battle is a contemptible act for which there is no atonement according to the culture of deep friendship and brotherhood of soldiers, as it were, in Palmach. In his book Ben Ari has broken the myth of deep friendship, which is perhaps the last myth that remains of the Palmach. When they attacked Nebi Samuel, Poznanski and many of his soldiers were struck immediately, perhaps not only from Arab gunfire but also from the gunfire of men of their company and Ben Ari's company. Avraham Keller, who was Ben Ari's company medic has testified, in a recorded interview: "we fired at Nebi Samuel as aid for Poza's men, and perhaps they were struck from our gunfire." 31 Uri Shalem, a squad commander in Ben Ari's company, has testified that Ben Ari sent him then to Poznanski's deputy, Yitzhak Geniger, with an order: "to withdraw immediately and don't rescue wounded." 32 Twenty seven wounded remained on the slope before Nebi Smuel. Poznanski was wounded and still alive when his soldiers abandoned him. Perhaps they believed that Ben Ari's men would rescue him. Ben Ari did not exercise his function as a reserve and a second wave, he did not try to complete the mission and occupy Nebi Samuel and he did not rescue the wounded from Poznanski's company, but "protected" his own company, which was not attacked, and he withdrew his men to the Motza – Jerusalem road. The Arabs slaughtered the wounded who were abandoned with knives. More than a few of Ben Ari's and Ben Porat's soldiers saw this but did not go to their aid. One of them, Rafael Eitan (Raful), was later IDF chief of staff, and there were also others who reached the IDF leadership. In his testimony to the IDF history department Ben Ari said: "Judging according to the resistance, I assess the enemy force in Nebi Samuel was a squad and a half. We could have occupied the village easily, if Poza's company had stormed forward in correct structure, and if our people had attacked the village." 33 But as mentioned, they did not even open fire. The two companies that took part in the action, company A (Ben Ari's) and Poza's company were independent, without a plan of mutual assistance, and without a possibility of assistance. In his testimony and in his book Ben Ari does not explain why he did not fulfill the function placed on him, to be a second wave in the attack, and did not complete the mission that Poznanski began, and why he did not find it possible to aid the attacking company that encountered difficulty. The IDF history department staffers, Colonels Y. Ashad and G. Luria did not ask him for explanations. Also in descriptions of other battles of his company, in Hulda, in Kolonia, in San Simon, in Beit Machsir, and in the attempt to break through to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, Ben Ari's book has distortions of facts. It should be possible to expect that men who have filled senior posts in Palmach and in the Harel brigade, and mainly brigade commander Yitzhak Rabin and researchers of the period Prof. Gabriel Cohen and Dr. Meir Payil, would express reservations about "After Me!." But they have granted it, as mentioned, the Yitzhak Sadeh prize for military literature. After this book appeared there was a party in Ben Ari's honor in the home of the secretary of the "Palmach Generation" foundation, Micha Peri, who took part in the battle for Nebi Samuel. Prime minister and defense minister Yitzhak Rabin was present at this party and praised the book and its author. Avraham Ben Dror, who was a squad commander in Poznanski's company, related that around fifty people, including most of the prominent officers in Palmach who remained alive, came to the party and praised "After Me." a In the 1980s I was appointed to the senior committee for deriving lessons in the IDF, headed by general Moshe Bar Kochva (Brill). Ben Ari was also a member of this committee. In one of the meetings of the plenary I claimed that field commanders are not adapted to deriving lessons for the IDF because they carry on their backs an unsavory past, and when they criticize failures, the ones criticized defend themselves by hurling accusations at them. As an example, I brought up Ben Ari's functioning in the battle for Nebi Samuel. Ben Ari turned pale and did not say a word. General Rehavam Ze'evi (Gandhi of blessed memory), who was later murdered by terrorists while he was a government minister, jumped from his seat, cursed and reprimanded me, and declared that he is resigning from the committee immediately, because he is simply not prepared to listen to slander about his comrade, a senior IDF field commander, and about Palmach commanders. None of the senior commanders that were present for this anti-intellectual scene said a word in my defense, and some argued against me that it is forbidden to mention names. Bar Kochva ended the meeting immediately, so that Ze'evi would not have to make good on his threat and resign. Outside brig. general (res.) Yoel Ben Porat said to me that I was correct in raising the problem, but in my stupidity, I transgressed an unwritten law: In the IDF it is forbidden to point to the guilty if they are senior commanders. Since then I stopped receiving invitations to meetings of the committee. "After Me!" is a book of characteristic manipulative memoirs, very well suited to the mythological defense culture of Israel. Anyone who wishes to understand the anti-intellectual profile of the heads of the IDF, and of many of the country's leaders who have served in the IDF, is invited to read this book. Yitzhak Rabin, Researchers Of The Wars, and The Israelis Yitzhak Rabin's autobiography "The Rabin Memoirs", which was written by the journalist Dov Goldstein, does not pretend to be objective, but historians and researchers, who do pretend to be objective, have dealt much with Rabin, and most of the things they have written are baseless. The connection between Rabin and most of the Israeli war researchers evinces the moral corruption of the research and the defilement of the researchers. Rabin's murder has granted legitimacy to this, it seems. In a conference of researchers that discussed the history of Israel's defense force, Dr. Meir Payil lectured on the topic: "Yitzhak Rabin – Soldier, Commander and Professional Army Man." The synopsis of his lecture, which is not supported by data, states that "until mid-April 1948 Rabin was mainly involved in instruction and operations planning." 34 It seems that Payil intended to diminish Rabin's responsibility for the Haganah failure on the Jerusalem front in the first four months of the war.In Rabin's Memoirs, however, it states that in the first months of the War of Independence "the responsibility for securing the convoys to Jerusalem and the Negev was placed on Palmach… the matter of dealing with Jerusalem and securing the road to it was placed on me in particular." 35 In the first quarter of the War of Independence Rabin did command the main front in the war, the road to Jerusalem. On this front, as mentioned, the Jews were dealt a crushing defeat that almost prevented establishment of the state of Israel. At the end of this period, Rabin was dismissed from his post and his subordinate Shaul Yaffeh, was appointed in his place. In the first four volumes of my book "History Of The War Of Independence", which appeared between 1989 – 1991, and in my book "The Rabin File – How The Myth Was Inflated", which appeared in April 1995, I described Rabin's functioning in that period in great detail and I based the information on much primary and secondary documentation. In the synopsis of Payil's lecture there is no attribution, either to Rabin's autobiography or to my research, and this is understandable: a description of Rabin's functioning in the first four months of the War of Independence is liable to damage his image as "a Soldier, Commander and Professional Army Man." Evasion of the facts made it easy for Payil to conclude his lecture thus: "There is therefore not the slightest doubt that Yitzhak Rabin, as a professional army man, left his impression clearly on the military and defense history of the state of Israel. And to that one should add his defense contribution in the years after, both as prime minister and defense minister." 36 Payil is correct: Rabin left his impression. But negatively. It is reasonable to assume that research studies of this kind, like Payil's, will elicit ample budgets for the continued activity of the Galili Institute and the continued employment of Meir Payil in it. Mid-April 1948 Rabin assumed command of the Harel brigade. In his lecture Payil praised the functioning of the brigade and the command center in the Jerusalem sector. According to him, the Harel brigade "saved Hebrew Jerusalem and prevented its falling. The commander of the brigade had a significant part in realizing this vital military and political achievement." 37 In my book "The Rabin File" I described the functioning of the brigade and command center in that period in considerable detail. The Jews lost many vital territories in the Jerusalem sector directly on account of Rabin, and they continued to hold western Jerusalem, not by virtue of, but despite his flawed functioning and that of his soldiers. The most severe episode in that period was, perhaps, the Harel brigade commander's abandonment of his soldiers in the "Bloody Convoy" battle in Shaar Hagay on April 20, 1948. In his research study, Yosef Tabenkin, who commanded one of the Harel battalions at this time, and who assumed command of the brigade after Rabin was dismissed, wrote about the results of this battle, notwithstanding their being replete with disaster. a Tabenkin has written that the ones who attacked the convoy were "a most inferior force that attacked only with gunfire from light weapons, not automatic. Furthermore, their number in terms of soldiers was doubtlessly less than thirty, versus a marvelous a, fully armed, Palmach battalion, including twenty armored cars…The battle of the convoy on April 20, was a decisive battle, and its failure brought about the blocking of the road to Jerusalem." 38 In his book "Latrun" Aryeh Yitzhaki did not ignore the facts, but turned Rabin's flight from the battle field into a story of heroism and resourcefulness. "In the midst of the battle the brigade commander and the operations officer came to the area of the ambush in a jeep. While still near Latrun they heard the sounds of the gunfire and understood what was happening. Rabin observed Tzvika Zamir, commander of the sixth battalion, and made contact with him. Tzvika told him that Macabi Motzri, who was with him, was badly wounded in the stomach, and he was trying to organize the evacuation of the armored cars to Jerusalem. Rabin quickly surveyed the situation and realized immediately that the force trapped in the ambush could not rescue itself. He understood that reinforcements needed to be sent to its aid from the fourth battalion. Because he did not have proper communications contact Rabin decided to proceed personally in swift transport to Kiryat Anavim and speed in reinforcements from there. The jeep proceeded along the whole ambush under heavy fire. In addition to the command jeep the commander of the fifth battalion, Ben Dunkelman, also succeeded in breaking through to them from the east." Yitzhaki wrote that in this description of the incident he relied on Rabin's book "Memoirs." He did not integrate documents from the IDF archives or testimony of other people.39 with the information from Rabin's autobiography. However, I have described the battle and the function of the brigade commander in my book "Rabin File" b thus: "On the evening of April 19, Rabin ordered the commander of the Palmach fifth battalion, Menachem Rusk, to take his soldiers out of the fixed posts on the way to Latrun and concentrate them in Hulda. According to Rabin's order Rusk spread his soldiers out in all the cars of the convoy, even though this was contrary to accumulated experience and contrary to Yadin's standing order and even Rabin's operational order itself. Only the men of the advance guard, under the command of Shmuel (Uli) Givon, stayed together. 'we heard the order with hearts full of dread', wrote Rusk in the Book of Palmach. 'There was much chaos. There was much crowding in the last car, and many young women were concentrated in the rear, of all things. There was no food, or battle rations and kitchen equipment was lacking. The articles were not all put in the cars. The communications equipment did not work, and the convoy vanguard, an armored company, was actually cut off from the rear. All told the convoy numbered around three hundred fifty cars, and it stretched out along five kilometers. c "On the morning of April 20, with a delay of two hours, d the sign was given and the convoy moved out. Givon's company of armored cars traveled at the head of the convoy, after it an armored bus – on which David Ben Gurion, Yitzhak Sadeh and other people from the defense leadership were passengers.After it came the trucks which were transporting six hundred twenty men of the fifth battalion and thirty five men of Givati. The driver, Nissim Avtalion, who reached Hulda after most of the cars of the convoy had departed, has related that his truck was loaded with backpacks of equipment for soldiers and a field kitchen, and on top of all this sat twenty male and female soldiers. Not all of them had weapons, and Avtalion also did not have a weapon. His vehicle was one of the twenty last trucks of the convoy. He did not receive instructions before he left Hulda. Yitzhak Rabin traveled along the convoy in a white jeep, back and forth. 40 "Even before then, Rabin ordered Tabenkin to capture posts along Shaar Hagay, by 4:00 AM, to patrol the road in armored cars and to maintain a reserve in Kiryat Anavim. But Tabenkin only sent a platoon and a half – fifty six men - to a single post, on a ridge north of the road, across the road from Beit Machsir. Most of the men of this force reached Kiryat Anavim a day earlier and were not familiar with the surrounding conditions. Yosef Yahalom has written that he and his soldiers left Kiryat Anavim at 4:30 AM. a They walked with all their equipment and captured their post only at 6:10 AM. Tabenkin ordered them to locate Arab soldiers on the road to the post, but they did not meet Arabs – they were already sitting in camouflaged positions and preserved silence. The Arab ambush was located west of Yahalom's post. Between 6:10 AM and 7:45 AM, Yahalom and his soldiers sat in their post with nothing to do. In Yahalom's report it states that he heard gunfire from Deir Iyub at 7:45 AM and received an explanation on the communications equipment from the home front command center in Kibbutz Nan: 'the men of the convoy are firing into the air'. 41 "Oved (Eved) Michaeli, a platoon commander in Givon's advance guard company: 'across from Deir Iyub, before the entry into Shaar Hagay, I saw groups of Arabs. I stationed the armored car and, fired at them with the machine gun. They fled, this bothered me very much'. 42 "Givon's advance guard company reached Jerusalem without disturbance. The armored bus, in which Ben Gurion was traveling after Givon's armored cars, reached the Eged bus station in central Jerusalem at 8:00 AM. Ben Gurion walked from there to the Jewish Agency building, and on the way went into a book store. The passers by cheered him, and he thought that the convoy mission was successful and he wrote in his diary: 'there was gunfire at the entrance to Shaar Hagay, but no one was wounded'. 43 "At that hour, 8:00 AM, the Arab force attacked the last hundred vehicles of the convoy, between Deir Iyub and the lower pumping station above Shaar Hagay. For Arab attorney Emile Goury this was his first battle as a force commander. He had not gone through a squad commander's course, and had not commanded any military unit in the past. It would seem that in a competition between Emil Gouri and Yitzhak Rabin and Menachem Rusk the former should not have had a chance, and nevertheless Emile Gouri had the upper hand. This should arouse in the readers of this book doubts about the quality of the understanding of the commanders of the Harel brigade regarding army and war experience, about the significance of calling Rabin 'a Soldier, Commander, and Professional Army Man', about the understanding of the researchers Meir Payil and Aryeh Yitzhaki, about the happenings they wrote about, and about the intentions of these researchers. "When the last car in the rear of the convoy passed Latrun, Emile Goury's soldiers blew up a small bridge over the road, in order to prevent the cars under attack from returning to Hulda. Nissim Avtalion: 'when I reached the turn onto Bab El Wad the bridge blew up and we saw smoke. The whole convoy was halted. We stood across from Deir Iyub for two hours. Arabs fired on us from the village. We got out of the cars, drivers and soldiers, and we sat in the trench and waited for someone to tell us what to do, but there was no commanders there'. When the commander of the advance guard company, Uli Givon, and Oved Michaeli, were informed that the vehicles were under attack, the two of them returned from Jerusalem in armored cars to the place of the problem. 44 Tthe report that Yigal Yadin received from Yitzhak Rabin two days later states: 'disabled vehicles blocked the road and the convoy was delayed. Our men were struck'. 45 "David Segel and half the men of his squad were located in the middle of the convoy, in trucks loaded with potatoes. They passed by some abandoned vehicles. In the vicinity of Beit Machsir they were fired on by ineffective gunfire, and they continued traveling and reached Jerusalem. Segel has related that before the convoy went on its way, Oved Michaeli told him: 'if there is an attack don't stop, continue traveling', therefore he and his squad did not get off the trucks with his soldiers and they did not aid the others under attack. 46 "One hundred vehicles were disabled on the road, that was blocked by damaged trucks – both those whose drivers were hurt and those whose drivers fled. Reports about what was happening on the road reached the headquarters of Yosef Tabenkin in Beit Fefferman in Ma'aleh Ha Hamisha at 8:30 AM. Consequently there is no basis to the claim in Yitzhaki's book that when Rabin abandoned the battle field, he traveled to Ma'aleh Ha Hamisha in order to inform the Palmach units there about what was happening or urge them to hasten to assist. Tabenkin, who had returned from Beit Surik and Bido, and was sleeping in the command center room in Beit Fefferman, woke up, sent a telegram to Yadin: 'The convoy is under attack. Send a plane to patrol the enemy concentrations in Beit Machsir'.Then he went back to bed Not all of Tabenkin's soldiers took part in the night attack, and some of those that did take part in it had already returned to base. If Tabenkin had so desired, he could have sent aid. But he did not send a force to rescue the convoy, because he assessed, according to his testimony, that there were large forces of Palmach in Shaar Hagay and they were adapted to overcome the Arab force that was firing on them from afar. 47 Pilots of the air service reported at 9:00 AM about concentrations of Arabs in Shaar Hagay. Men of Harel in Tel Aviv knew what was happening and did not need Rabin's reports from Ma'aleh Ha Hamisha. Tabenkin and the men of the Ma'aleh Ha Hamisha headquarters knew what was happening. Yosef Yahalom and his soldiers, in the base north of Saris, knew what was happening. According to the operation order, in case of need Tabenkin had to mobilze a reserve company to aid the convoy. Nonetheless aid did not reach the ones under attack until noon. It would seem they did not need assistance. They were six hundred thirty five soldiers, and among them more than a few veteran commanders, including brigade commander Yitzhak Rabin, his deputy Itiel Amihay and the battalion commanders Menachem Rusk and Tzvi Zamir. The function of the commanders was to mobilize their soldiers to destroy the attackers, but these commanders had but little battle experience, they lost their composure and did not fulfill their mission. "Here is the testimony of company commander Shmuel (Uli) Givon, who commanded a force of the armored cars that protected the convoy and who returned to the convoy from Jerusalem: 'When the convoy came close to Deir Iyub, gunfire was opened on it from the direction of the village, which caused demoralization and broke its organization. I tried to re-organize it, and when I did not succeed I got out of the armored car and ran to Shaar Hagay. On the way I was wounded in the head. The road near Shaar Hagay was obstructed by a road block. I broke through with three armored cars of the forward unit and I went up to Neve Ilan to summon reinforcements. There Yitzhak Rabin reprimanded me and accused me of fleeing from my post'. 48 "Company commander Yehuda (Idel) Drecksler: 'I was stationed with the fifth battalion when my company was already on the vehicles on the way to Jerusalem. I did not know the men, including my deputy Zivi Tzarfati, and therefore I also did not have control over them…I reached Kiryat Anavim with my own strength'. 49 "The physician, Dr. Yissachar: 'we remained stuck in one of the places in the trench. We could not move and we returned fire. We fought, our backs really against the wall – the steep walls of Shaar Hagay – and in front of us the road was covered with bullets and enemy fire raging. One of the soldiers tried to jump out of the trench, and was immediately struck in the knee. The picture is engraved in my memory in all its brutality. Here he is cast in front of us on the road, a few meters from us, and no one can approach him. Leaving our cover would mean death…we cannot remain here. And the wild calls of the Arabs, drunken with their victory, are coming closer. They are coming down toward us from the mountain. Instinctively, the men of the group took out grenades, and each of them had the same thought. The hope for rescue was finished, even in defense we could not withstand this for an extended time, we would therefore destroy ourselves'. 50 "Ben Dunkelman, later commander of brigade 7, has written: 'the convoy stopped again. The road was blocked again. Trucks were burning. Bodies beside the road. The armored car was pushing the damaged trucks with the aid of Palmachniks. When the convoy passed this jam, I recognized a familiar personality. Harry Yaffeh was urging the drivers to move forward, move forward…He stood in the middle of the road, a perfect target for the enemy gunfire. Bullets were flying in every direction with the Arabs concentrating their gunfire on the point of the road block and they tried to stop the convoy once and for all, but Harry stood there, cool headed and trying to get the damaged vehicles out of the way, until the road was completely cleared'. 51 "'The absence of command over the convoy and the severe flaw in the distribution of the soldiers, stood out immediately', Menachem Rusk, commander of the fifth battalion, under whose direct responsibility came most of the soldiers of the convoy, their proper mobilization, and protection of their lives has written. 'This distribution negated their value as a crushing force and a defense force all at once. The gunfire that was returned by the soldiers, without an order, was not coordinated and was therefore also not effective, while the enemy's gunfire continued to intensify…Fear gripped the drivers. And there were those that continued driving at a reduced rate.Those that left their vehicles, entered the trenches – to find a defense against the bullets – and their abandoned vehicles blocked the road. Besides removal of the damaged vehicles – gaining control of the drivers was the main problem'. a "Rabin has written: "I could not concentrate a large force. The fifth battalion was spread out among the trucks…a target for snipers atop numerous sacks and boxes of supplies. I decided to leave for Kiyat Anavim, and to order the fourth battalion – that reached there after it was in action at night against the villages of Bido and Beit Surik – to go into action as a concentrated force to rescue the convoy and its passengers. At the moment that I left, the gunfire was concentrated on the jeep in which we were riding. By a miracle we were not struck'. 52 It seems that in Rabin's eyes, according to the norms of fighting and command under fire, the same law did not apply for a company commander and a brigade commander This begs the question, why couldn't Rabin concentrate the soldiers and send them into action against the attackers? Indeed , this was his function, as the direct commander of all the soldiers in the battle and as commander of the convoy! "According to his subordinate, Menachem Rusk, in his testimony to the IDF History Department, Rabin ignored the battle of the bloody convoy and the episode of his fleeing, and did not devote even one word to them. The staff of the History Department, amazingly, did not inquire. 53 "The brigade commander and the battalion commander did not organize units out of the hundreds of soldiers that were trapped in order to try to break the attack. However, company commander Yakov Stutzki, did organize such a unit. With three soldiers, without aid and without a holding force Stutzki stormed the Arab position. In the exchange of fire all four were killed. The battalion's deputy intelligence officer, Yosef Simbol, also organized a unit, captured a ridge and held back an Arab platoon that was advancing toward the wounded that were concentrated on the road. He was killed in the exchange of gunfire. The battalion soldier responsible for weapons, Tzadok Gol, assembled under fire a medium machine gun and fired at the attackers until he was killed. Of all the senior commanders, only the Harel brigade's intelligence officer, Zerubabel Arbel, organized some soldiers and fought together with them, until he was wounded. 54 "Yosef Yahalom and his soldiers were stationed in a post north of the road. They heard gunfire but stayed in place and did not try to aid the passengers of the convoy under attack. Later, Yahalom related: 'Arabs were coming down from the other side of the wadi, from Beit Machsir, and we fired at them. We received intelligence from a pilot who tossed us a note from the plane'. His deputy, Menachem Amihai, said later that Yahalom's war function was to prevent the inhabitants of Beit Machsir from advancing to the road, but they did not have a good observation point on to the road. Yahalom requested intelligence on the communications equipment, but did not receive it. Sharon Lev Tov, a machine gunner in Yahalom's force: 'all the inhabitants of Beit Machsir – men, women and children – came down to the road to take spoils. Our vision was limited. On the ridges we saw Arabs carrying sacks of flour and sugar on their way back to their village, and we fired at them from afar. Masses of Arabs fired at us, and our problem was how to rescue ourselves'. "Menachem Amichai has related that eleven survivors from the convoy came in a condition of shock to Yahalom's position. The mortar man, Shmuel Ronen, has related that he fired shells in the direction of the attackers, but they were too far away and the shells did not reach them. Yahalom's report states that he received an order in the afternoon, to cover the rescue of the disabled vehicles. But he was not told where they were, and when it got dark he received an order to descend to the road and guard the disabled vehicles. But 'there was already nothing to guard…and the order was changed. We returned to base by the same route'. 55 "Yitzhak Rabin, who had traveled to Kiryat Anavim to summon aid, was unable to locate Yosef Tabenkin (he was asleep in Beit Fefferman, in Ma'aleh Ha Hamisha). He did find deputy battalion commander, Uzi Narkiss. In his memoirs Narkiss has written: 'I saw a car stop with a screech of brakes at the doorway of the command center shack. Yitzhak Rabin jumped out of it – and the appearance of his wild hair remains clearly before my eyes… He broke through the door in a storm, and cried out in a speechless breath, "Uzi, the convoy is stuck. A tremendous mess. all of the brigade's ammunition is loaded on one truck that is stuck beside Shaar Hagay. You must rescue it and bring it here." But he said what he said and already left the room and continued on his way to Jerusalem'. a "Also according to the testimony of Narkiss, Rabin's behavior was strange. In Shaar Hagay they were destroying his brigade and he is traveling to Jerusalem! This testimony strengthens the explanation that the fleeing brigade commander was in a state of battle shock. But Narkiss is not precise. After a chat with Narkiss, Rabin traveled to Ma'aleh Ha Hamisha and met with battalion commander Yosef Tabenkin. Here is the conversation between the two according to Tabenkin: Rabin: 'Something terrible has happened! The convoy is under attack, vehicles are scattered along the road. Just dreadful. Killed and wounded. We need to dispatch aid'. Tabenkin: 'The units will return to Kiryat Anavim within an hour, and then I will be able to send aid. You can return to the road with my armored cars'. Rabin: Yosef, I am tired and I want to sleep. I am traveling to Jerusalem'. 'I heard, I was astonished, I did not add a word', Tabenkin has related. 'I almost told him: "Men that are not adapted to withstand battle don't take command on themselves." Men who are unfit, that declare they are tired and want to sleep, sometimes filter into the leadership of command. This is a sign that they are broken. I thought then that Alon had appointed to senior command a man that cannot withstand the conditions of pressure under battle. I left him and I went to organize the reinforcements'. 56 Thirty vehicles (trucks and armored cars) were abandoned on the road and looted. Eight of them were burned and the others were rescued by aid of the British. Around two hundred trucks reached Jerusalem, and others returned to Hulda with their cargo. Ten Jewish soldiers were killed in the battle of 'The Bloody Convoy', thirty were wounded and three of them died of their wounds. One of the killed was Maccabi Motzri, a figure from the Harel brigade command center and an aide of Rabin's in commanding the 'front line', from the start of the war. On April 22 Rabin reported to Alon: "My situation is a catastrophe. I have been without money and without an aide. Menachem (Rusk's) organization is harmed." 57 "The Bloody Convoy" was the first step in the offensive of operation 'Yebusi'. Its failure was unpreventable: the brigade commander, Rabin, did not have control of his soldiers, the battalion commander, Tabenkin, did not intend to follow the operational orders and the battalion commander, Rusk, did not succeed in following them. The Arab force in Jerusalem, that was inferior to the Jewish force in Jerusalem in terms of quality and quantity, achieved a moral victory in the battle of April 20. In this battle two commanders, Yitzhak Rabin and Emile Goury competed against each other, and the latter had the upper hand. This was Rabin's second failure on the Jerusalem front, after Abed El Khader El Husseini overpowered him in the war of the road to Jerusalem in the first months of the war. Not only had Rabin not learned a thing from his first defeat. His commanders also did not learn. Following Goury's victory over Rabin, the morale of the Jews was very low, but the moral victory of the Arabs did not free them from the shock of Deir Yassin, and the question was if and how the Jews would exploit this shock. The battle of the 'The Bloody Convoy' teaches that the path of the Jews to victory was fraught with defeat. The functioning of the commander in battle and his command method are two determining factors in the character of an army. To a large measure, the commander's control over his soldiers and his ability to reduce the characteristic chaos of the battle field are dependent on these two factors. In particular, this is how things operate in a militia army (such as Haganah and Palmach) in which the lower echelon soldiers and commanders are not professionals and the senior commanders are supposed to have control of the doctrine of battle and instill fighting spirit in their soldiers by their very presence. The myth of the "fighter" commander, as mentioned, is engraved deeply in the IDF battle heritage, because in a non-professional army it is proper that the senior commanders will be present on the line of fire. Rabin's functioning in the convoy in which his brigade went up to Jerusalem stands in opposition to the image that Palmach commanders set for themselves, and that the IDF (which Haganah and Palmach had a decisive role in creating and commanding) set for itself also. In 1988, I testified in military court on behalf of the defense of private Ron Almog, regarding his functioning on "The Night Of The Gliders." a I said that Almog's cowardice in the presence of the enemy is not an exceptional phenomenon, and that some commanders, who had reached senior rank in the IDF, also behaved as he did. In reply to a question from the judges, I described the functioning of Yitzhak Rabin on April 20, 1948, and I explained that Rabin himself fled from the battle field, abandoned his soldiers, and did not return to them with reinforcements. If a man that was a brigade commander, chief of staff, prime minister and defense minister, behaves thus (and not only him), how is one to judge the guard at the fence, Ron Almog, severely? Journalists sought a reaction from Rabin, and he refused to comment on my statements, and the judges also rejected them in their ruling. In a newspaper debate with Meir Payil in 1991 I presented Rabin's functioning in this battle as an example of the norms of Palmach commanders that have been concealed for decades. I said: "There is no such thing on earth that a brigade commander goes to summon aid. It is ridiculous on the face of it." Payil: "The expression 'Rabin fled' is Milstein mud. The facts are that brigade commander Rabin flew forward to Kiryat Anavim to summon aid. Thanks to this action that he performed reinforcements came and rescued the convoy. His saying that he collapsed and went to sleep? I have not checked, but let's assume so for the sake of argument. So what? Were people rescued as a result of Rabin's resourcefulness? This is the only standard." The interviewer, Rami Rosen, asked Payil: "And what about the well-known myth of 'After Me'? At least on this point you break myths together with Milstein." Payil: "Exactly the opposite. Milstein… is the one who attacks people on account of the myth of 'After Me'. And I, Meir Payil, say that this standard is not valid. A commander needs to locate himself in the place from which he can have control over ongoing matters. And if for that purpose it is desirable that he will be far (in this case ten kilometers from the battle field, UM) that is where he needs to be." 58 May the reader note that an educator of IDF officers, and more than any other person, a shaper of its spirit, retired Colonel and Doctor of Military History, Meir Payil, defines a commander's abandonment of the battle field to summon aid, as "resourcefulness". While even Rabin himself, on the day he fled, called this behavior "flight", when the one fleeing was his subordinate, Uli Givon. Payil was surely correct when he stated that the commander must locate himself in that place from which he can have control over ongoing matters. Therefore Rabin clearly should have remained in Shaar Hagay, and taken command over his seven hundred and ten soldiers, against whom thirty Arabs were firing from afar. In the official IDF book "On Leadership", which was published in 1992, about a year after the abovementioned debate, Payil wrote: "The readiness to fight, is emotional and it expresses the measure of internal desire of every fighting man to sacrifice what is dearest to him for the sake of the general objective. To the extent that the readiness of soldiers to fight is greater, the drive of the fighting will be stronger." In order to strengthen the emotional readiness to fight Payil proposes that IDF commanders "put into action the personal example of commanders." 59 If, in order to teach the merit of his patron, Payil is prepared to distort accepted principles of command, in every case in every army,including the IDF, a and these are completely acceptable to him, then he is not a man of science and also not a historian. The heads of the defense establishment, that continued, after this debate, to place in his hands the formation of the character of the officers throughout the chain of command, have proven that they do not understand military experience and war, or best interests of the IDF. The continued survival of Israel is not at the top of their list of priorities. Two weeks later, the author of "Nine Measures" (see following), Yitzhak Levy (Levitza), who wrote an article on this topic, joined the debate: "Hatred and a desire to harm guide Milstein when he attacks Yitzhak Rabin over his daring to break through on his own the screen of gunfire and leave the attacked convoy on its way to Jerusalem. He reached Kiryat Anavim at great risk and summoned reinforcements. Milstein's statements have no logic. The convoy was trapped, the road blocked by disabled vehicles, the Arabs were in controlling positions over the area in which the convoy was halted, and only a force from outside could have rescued it. It was necessary to reach Kiryat Anavim and summon the force from there. Rabin could have placed the mission on someone else, but he decided to do this himself. A brave act in anyone's view. His remaining at the place would not have changed the situation of the convoy, b while in Kiryat Anavim he could bring about reinforcements that left without delay." 60 Levy is correct, a commander in shock remaining on the battle field "would not have changed the situation of the convoy", and perhaps would have changed it for the worst. Perhaps he was liable to give unreasonable orders. But why define abandonment of soldiers and fleeing the battle field as "a brave act"? Levy, a senior officer in the War of Independence and secretary of the ministry of defense in the first years of the 1950s, wrote a book about Jerusalem in the War of Independence, c that was published by the Ma'arachot publishing house of the IDF. I see in the abovementioned article payment of a debt of thanks to the defense establishment and the man who is its symbol, Yitzhak Rabin. I believe that Rabin's job was to organize his masses of soldiers and lead them in battle against the attackers, who were, as mentioned, inferior to them in number and battle experience. He did not fulfill this task. The one who did fulfill it was his intelligence officer, Zerubabel Arbel. Nonetheless, Rabin advanced in the chain of command and reached the leadership. The details of the "Bloody Convoy" incident have been kept secret for decades. As a closed system that does not receive messages from outside, the IDF has continued to educate its commanders about the example of Yitzhak Rabin – brave soul, who stormed forward at the head of his men, even after I exposed the truth. In his article "Four Traditions Of Leadership In The IDF", in the section "Adherence To Mission", Avihu Ronen has written: "The principle of adherence to mission has two aspects. One is the requirement that the commander will lead his men in undertaking missions that are considered impossible in the eyes of others. Difficult but possible, declared Rabin even in Palmach days." 61 In my view, one of the explanations for the IDF's defeat in every military test after the Six Day War is the education of commanders on myths and lies. Only one article of criticism was published in Israel about the book "The Rabin File – How The Myth Was Inflated" – in the literary supplement of Ha'aretz. On October 15, 1995 the editor of the literary supplement, Michael Handelsaltz published an article called "To Chase After The Wind", in which he wrote: "The book (The Rabin File), which surveys in great detail the early and later military career of Rabin, finds flaw with Rabin and claims in blunt language that his deeds as a statesman are tied to his military failures. Milstein's declared purpose in the book is to crush Rabin's image as a military leader, in order to present sharp criticism about his political path. a The literary supplement staff turned to some researchers in the field of military history and asked that they write a review of the book, but they returned it on the grounds that it does not deserve comment. b "Insofar as it seemed to us that it is not possible to leave the claims raised in it without response, we continued in our attempts. Yagil Levy, who reviewed the book finally, found flaws in its methodology and its claims. Is it therefore a dangerous book? On that I cast doubt. The concept that books are dangerous has been accepted by many people and regimes in various periods. On account of this belief, books have been burned and the death sentence has even been issued against a writer because of a book he wrote…Someone who persecutes books will find himself persecuting the wind, and confining the spirit, and will not succeed in coping with true dangers." 62 To those that have claimed following Rabin's murder that the act of murder is proof that my book is indeed dangerous, here is my reply: Indeed, I sharply criticized Yitzhak Rabin, but in my book there is no call to murder him or harm him. In a cultured, democratic and pluralistic society as Israel pretends to be, criticism about government leaders is not only legitimate but even necessary. While those for whom exaltations of democracy and pluralism are in their throats do everything to eliminate "The Rabin File" from the consensus. This is additional proof of the anti-democratic character of the elites in Israel. The article by Dr. Yagil Levy "Contributing To The Palmach Myth", was published in the literary supplement on 11 October 1995. Levy claimed that "the cherry on the whipped cream" of my book is Rabin's fleeing from "The Harel Convoy", and abandonment of his soldiers, and he criticized me because "there is no mention of what Rabin did after he summoned aid: did he persist in fleeing or return to the battle field?" But on page 196 of my book I quote, in black and white, the conversation between Rabin and Yosef Tabenkin in Kiryat Anavim, from which it is clear that after the brigade commander abandoned his soldiers in Shaar Hagay, and asked Tabenkin to send aid to them, he traveled to Jerusalem and went to sleep in the Harel brigade command center, in the Reich pension in the Beit Ha Kerem neighborhood. Levy also wrote that I refrained from "quantifying the balance of forces between the force that Rabin commanded and the Palestinian forces, in order to discern if from the start the command center placed on him missions that could be undertaken." But in the section on Rabin's fleeing from the battle field of "The Bloody Convoy" I detailed the forces that were at his disposal: "six hundred and twenty men of the fifth battalion (Palmach) and thirty five men of Givati, and they were joined by fifty six soldiers from the fourth battalion, under the command of Yosef Yahalom, who were guarding the convoy from positions on the northern hills of Shaar Hagay (page 192). In total – seven hundred and eleven soldiers, mostly Palmach men, and battle veterans. In terms of the War of Independence this was a tremendous force. I also detailed the forces that were at the disposal of Emile Goury – who with doubt reached thirty, and I noted that they fired with light weapons, not automatic, and that this was Emile Goury's first battle as commander. Dr. Levy claimed that my book was flawed in "its character as new history of the 1948 war, which in recent years has merited its first legitimacy, and Milstein mistakenly believes that he is contributing to this." If he had bothered to read least the back of my book's jacket he would learned from it that I am not a new historian but "a philosopher and that I deal in research on the military experience and war as a model for understanding human behavior and present civilization", including the phenomena of critics like Dr. Yagil Levy, and many other critics (Prof.. Anita Shapira, Prof. Yoel Gelber and Dr. Meir Payil), who evade contending with new approaches to topics in which they seem to be experts and from which they make a living. As Prof. Ze'ev Bachler has said: "To be rational means to stay alive, and if staying alive requires arbitrary decisions, such as ignoring inconsistencies, then arbitrariness is a rational act. Not to expire from hunger, this is the highest rule of rationality." 63 According to the Israeli decoding, the concept "New History" is an attempt to ruin the Zionist entity and point to the injustice that it has caused to the Palestinians, while "The Rabin File" does not break the Zionist myths that are connected to the Palestinian problem, but rather our own defense myths, and first and foremost the myth of Yitzhak Rabin. No one has ever claimed that the Rabin myth is considered a principle of Zionism or a tenet of Zionist ideology. Therefore I do not think that I am contributing to the new history. Without commenting on Levy's qualifications, it seems to me that he does not have the qualifications to criticize my book of history and research on the army and the war, and if he had intellectual honesty he would have refused Handelsaltz's offer to criticize "The Rabin File." In my book "Collapse And Its Lesson" (1993) in the section on "The Deification Of Rabin", I wrote: "The political development of the present is, oriented to internal politics. Rabin's election campaign, is a campaign to crown him emperor, at least, if not a god…Oddly enough, Rabin's strength is a derivative of his basic weakness and his catastrophic mistakes. From this perspective Rabin is a historic phenomenon. This was also the power of Jesus. It seems that this is the present direction of our secular-military religion." 64 In my book "The Rabin File – How The Myth Was Inflated", which was published a half year before the murder, I wrote: "Yitzhak Rabin is a saint in the eyes of the believers in the religion of the army, whose commandments they follow and in whose principles the vast majority of people believe, whether they are conscious of that or not." 65 As befits books that harm essentials of faith, "The Rabin File" was banned in Israel and it is impossible to obtain it in stores, even though at the time of the writing of these lines the stock is not sold out. One of Rabin's failures was his personal responsibility for conceptual errors in Shin Beit, on which the Shamgar Commission commented, and which brought about the catastrophic outcome of his murder. Rabin had control over Shin Beit by virtue of his position as prime minister; It was Shin Beit that did not know how to prevent Rabin's murder. After the murder, Rabin joined Jesus as a son of God that was crucified (murdered) and in whom one should believe until the end of time. The campaign for Rabin's deification, which leaders of the political left have conducted to derive political benefit, was joined by most of the leaders of the political right, headed by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, in order to remove from themselves the blame for incitement to murder. Rabin became immune from criticism, and everything he did, from birth, was sanctified. In the eyes of many Israelis, a military leader is a substitute for God. a This phenomenon was normative in ancient Rome, and one of the reasons for the Jewish revolt against the Romans was their absence of Jewish readiness to make sacrifices to Caesar. The phenomenon of the military leader as an object of faith exists not only on the Israeli political left, but also on the political right, and even in the national religious population, including the heads of Bar Ilan University, where Yigal Amir studied. After the murder the heads of this university made many efforts to convince the administration that they also sanctify Rabin, and to that end they canceled my lectures at the university and distanced me also from the College of Judea and Samaria, which is an academic extension of Bar Ilan University, because I don't deserve to teach in any university in Israel. b Rabin became a norm that one does not examine or research, but researches according to accepted norms. Also numbered among Rabin's admirers are those that opposed his policies, such as Ariel Sharon, Rehavam Ze'evi and Rafael Eitan. Many of those that do not admire him do not dare to disclose their opinion publicly, because it is forbidden to slander a god. If Rabin is an object of faith, his failures and oversights do not add or subtract in the eyes of the believers. The facts are not a category of attribution to a god. Rabin's admirers do not appreciate him with the aid of facts. Rather, he is the creator of the facts and instills value in them The deification of Rabin is a clear expression of the primitiveness of Israeli culture. This is the "idol worship" that infects many wearers of skull caps, not to mention most of the secular community. This phenomenon also explains the fascist a character of Israeli culture in general and of the political culture and defense culture of Israel in particular. Israelis, like most people, do not understand the experience of the military and war, and their approach to this topic is according to the dictum "What is beyond your comprehension, don't investigate", which is a principle of faith and not of research. To many Israelis, Rabin was a father figure, as Saddam Hussein was a father figure to the Iraqis, and as Stalin was to many left wing people, including Israelis. In this culture there is no place for arguments, for differences of opinion, for research, for exposing facts, for improving and correcting. Someone who denies faith in Rabin is essentially a heretic, who must be banned and about whose statements it is forbidden to comment except as a case of insanity, as marginal and extreme. This is the consensus of the political system in Israel, of the legitimate elites, of the media, of intellectuals and of the university community. This is the sole national agreement in Israel. This is one of the symptoms that attest to its Bolshevist character. Yisrael Tal ***On the back of Yisrael Tal's book "National Security – The Few Against The Many", which was published in 1996, there is a reader's recommendation from the well-known writer Amos Oz: a "This book presents a philosophical view of the bond between security, ethics and peace." Now, ten years after publication of the book and a year after the end of the Second Lebanon War, any intelligent person can perceive that the approach and thinking of general Tal, which has, in great measure, molded Israel's defense establishment, has not brought peace, security, or ethics. Both Tal and Oz have revealed themselves as not understanding the experience of the military or war. In Tal's book, in the section that discusses the War of Independence, practically no claim is substantiated. Oz, who perhaps read the manuscript before publication, had no tools to check substantiation of its claims; Tal on the other hand, who won the Israel Prize for his life's work in the year this book was written, should have such tools. In the opening to the section on the War of Independence Tal has written: "the Arab objective in the war was to subdue the Jewish settlement and even destroy it, and to take control over all of western Palestine." 66 It is possible to claim that this is the strategic objective of all the Arabs also at the time of the writing of these lines Certainly, this is the strategic objective of Hizbullah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, but they have no operational plan to do this, at least not in a year, because they assess that realization of such a mission in a short time is beyond their power. Also in the War of Independence, which lasted a little more than a year, the Arabs did not have such an operational plan, and for the same reason. Here is the substantiation of my claim: In an interview with Egyptian journalist Hasnin Heychal, that was published in the Cairo paper "Ahir Asaa" on May 27, 1953, the former secretary of the Arab League, Azam Paha, revealed that in 1947 he proposed that the Arab armies deploy along the borders of Palestine, but only guerilla forces of the Arabs of Palestine and volunteers would take part in this action, which would receive financing from the Arab countries. According to him, on the day the Jewish State was declared, May 14, 1948, he explained to the Syrian president and the King of Jordan that there is no sense in an invasion. On December 1, 1947, the second day of the War of Independence, the US ambassador in Saudi Arabia, River Chelles, talked with senior figures in the Saudi administration and reported to US secretary of state, George Marshall: "The Saudi king, Ibn Saud has decided to prevent the invasion of regular armies into Palestine." Four days later Ibn Saud requested from Chelles that the US aid him in standing up to the pressures that the other Arab countries were exerting on him. 67 In volume two of my book on The War of Independence "The First Month", I brought up the discussions of the political committee of the Arab League in Cairo, in which Arab rulers and military commanders took part. These discussions lasted from December 8 to 17 1947. Staff from British intelligence took part in these discussions and they reported to their government about them. If Tal did not want to rely on my book or note it as a source, he could have examined the reports in the British state archives. According to these reports in Cairo the Arab generals claimed that the Arab armies were not prepared for a broad war action (and without a broad war action it was not possible "to subdue the Jewish settlement and even destroy it over all of western Palestine", as Tal states). The committee therefore decided that the Arab League would aid the Arabs of Palestine, but not take part in the war. The reasoning: "If the Arabs bring heavy weapons, armor and planes into action, the Jews will obtain similar weapons, and if the regular armies attack, the Jews will improve their military standards. One needs to take into account that the Jews are more efficient than the Arabs." This was not " racist reasoning" of members of the "Kach" movement, but matter of fact reasoning of the Arab military leaders. One of the British intelligence officials, brigadier A. N. Clayton, reported that the Arab prime ministers understood that the Arab war enthusiasm did not have a long life expectancy. Many of them said openly that most of the Arabs did not want to and could not leave their families and their fields, and that even the demonstrative enthusiasm of the young men is only temporary: "The ones bravely shattering the display windows of defenseless people, will not withstand the difficult conditions of war in the Judean hills", assessed the Arab military leaders in December 1947. They also reported that "from the first two thousand volunteers that were registered in Alexandria, less than two hundred have agreed to really volunteer, and the physical preparedness of many of them is deficient. There is a severe shortage of rifles and they are costly." Intelligence official J.J. Jenkins assessed: "In the decisions of the political committee the hope was expressed that the steadfast resistance of the Arabs to a Jewish state would influence the United States and the UN to change the resolution. It is possible that the military clash will be postponed for eight months, because the statesmen are worried about chopping off the branch on which they are sitting (endangering their armies in a war against the Jews), and therefore the Arabs will reach a modus vivendi with the Jewish state." 68 As every reader can understand: modus vivendi with a country does not mean destroying it. A month after the war broke out, in the end of December 1947, the Arab affairs experts in the Jewish Agency and Haganah also assessed that the Arab countries were not prepared to embarrass themselves by direct involvement in a war. 69 Yisrael Tal has written that at the first stages of the War of Independence, until the Jews obtained heavy weapons, in other words until April/May 1948, "The optimal solution to the problem of inequality in fire power was achieving defeat based on night fighting of the commandos, which were comprised mainly of infantry units." 70 It would seem that Yisrael Tal's military intellectual did not know and did not understand at the end of the 1990s what the Arab military leaders knew and understood at the end of the 1940s – that the military forces of Palestine's Arabs were much weaker than the military forces of the Jews at the beginning of the War of Independence. Two days before the UN resolution terminating the British mandate in Palestine and establishing an independent Jewish state, and the beginning of the war, the Iraqi general Ismail Tzafot presented a report to the heads of the Arab League in which he noted the military advantage of the Jews over Palestine's Arabs. He expressed the opinion that training of the Palestinians and supplying weapons to their units would not enable them to beat the Jews. 71 Here is the data on the relationship of forces: A half year before the War of Independence broke out, the Haganah organization numbered thirty five thousand. Most of them were organized as a guard corps and as a popular militia. Haganah had one recruited brigade – the Palmach – which numbered about two thousand nine hundred, and six thousand one hundred commanders of the field corps, intelligence officials, military industry, acquisition, instruction, and organizational staff, who were recruited. One of the recruits was Yisrael Tal, who served in the days of the Second World War in the Jewish brigade of the British army, and who was an instructor in Haganah, before the War of Independence broke out, in the use of machine guns. In the "battle corps" of Etzel there were then one thousand four hundred registered, and in the "propaganda corps" one thousand three hundred, and five hundred young men and women. In the Lehi "soldiers brigade" there were one hundred sixty and there were one hundred fifty adults and thirty young men and women in service to this organization. 72 When the war broke out Haganah, Etzel and Lehi had aerial services (including eleven planes and twenty eight pilots, 73) a marine commando unit, around ten thousand three hundred riles, around seven thousand pistols, around seven hundred 52 mm mortars, around one hundred 81 mm mortars, around one hundred ninety medium machine guns, around six hundred light machine guns, around two thousand five hundred sub-machineguns, twenty one thousand grenades, and around twenty tons of explosives. 74 The Arab states in general and the Palestinian Arabs in particular, were not prepared at the end of the 1940s for a decisive military confrontation with the Jews. From the perspective of military ability, organization, definition of missions, and unity of command, the Palestinian Arabs remained in the place where they stood twelve years prior to that, in the days of the "Arab Revolt." a When the war broke out in Palestine some Arab gangs went into action, with no more than three hundred men all together. They were not subordinate to a unified command and were not adapted to undertaking more than terror attacks. Their main weapons were rifles and pistols. Many Arabs who were not numbered with the gangs had personal weapons, that enabled them to strike at Jews but not to conduct a war. In October 1947, around two weeks before the War of Independence broke out, the council of the Arab League convened in Lebanon, in the town of Aali. Iraqi general Ismail Tzafot, a member of the League's military committee, recommended immediately equipping the Arabs of Palestine with nineteen thousand rifles, and also machine guns, grenades, explosives and ammunition, to allocate to the Palestinian leadership one million pounds sterling, and to place this amount at the disposal of the military committee. Out of all these recommendations the politicians accepted only one: to allocate one million pounds sterling, and this money was not sent to the Arabs of Palestine but to the League's military committee. 75 It is possible to learn about the military equipment in the hands of the Arabs of Palestine at the outbreak of the war and about the weapons that were supplied or not supplied to them, from the diary of Taha Al Hashemi from December 14, 1947: "Today Sheikh Nimer Al Hativ, a member of the national committee in Haifa, came to Damascus, sent on behalf of Rashid Haj Ibrahim…He noted that the national committee in Haifa had no knowledge of the distribution of weapons that were sent from the military committee. This situation seems extremely strange to him, as a loyalist of the Mufti. Abu Ibrahim Al Zarir, informed the military committee that he distributed the seventy two rifles that were given to him to the inhabitants of Haifa." 76 It emerged that Abu Ibrahim did not follow the instructions of the committee, and he distributed the weapons according to the instructions of the Mufti. This was the first revelation of the absence of organization in Palestine. The failure of all the military actions of the Arabs of Palestine in the first month of the war motivated the Arab heads of state to order the infiltration of units of "The Army Of Rescue" into Palestine at the end of December 1947. These units situated themselves mainly in Samaria and the Galilee, and in the first four months of the war they attacked only two settlements: Kibbutz Yehiam in the western Galilee on January 20, and Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi in the Beit Shean valley, on February 14. In these two attacks the Jews repelled the soldiers of "The Army Of Rescue." In the first months of the war the main military activity was in Jerusalem and in Gush Etzion. In this arena Haganah forces had a decisive advantage over the Arabs of Palestine, both in the number and military quality of soldiers, and also in weapons. By virtue of a fabricated assessment Tal, has stated that " In order to overcome this limitation (weak Jewish fire power), the method adopted was to evade gunfire battles, by approaching the target in concealment, without fighting. Instead of covering movement by silencing sources of Arab gunfire, the IDF forces customarily moved at night, approached the target under cover of darkness and attacked. With this method the qualitative superiority of the Israeli soldier in the War of Independence found expression. By abstaining from the stage of "fighting to the target" and passing over to the stage of "fighting over the target", the Arab soldier was forced to cope with the Jewish soldier in a face to face battle – motivation vs. motivation, soldier vs. soldier, grenade vs. grenade and bayonet vs. bayonet – since at this stage of the fighting there was no decisive meaning to the supportive power of gunfire." 77 In his book Tal has not brought up one example to base this central claim in his book. Such writing is characteristic of senior army figures, who believe that their ranks and places in the hierarchy automatically validate their claims. The reality was the reverse: in the first months of the War of Independence the Jews indeed had the greatest day battle success. On January 14, one squad under command of platoon commander Aryeh Amit (Tefer) under cover from another squad, attacked thousands of soldiers commanded by Abed El Kader El Husseini and defeated them. 78 But if Netanel Lorch does not know about this incident why would Tal mention it? The Haganah organization moved into night action after the 35 were killed on their way to Gush Etzion on January 16. Because of the general interest in concealing the facts of the episode of the 35, the myth about the superiority of Arab fire power was strengthened when the War of Independence broke out, and the Israelis believe it to this very day. Tal's statement that in the first months of the war the Arabs had an advantage over the Jews in fire power provides a pretext for the flawed functioning of Haganah which did not implement its decisive military advantage in the battle field at the first stages of the war. For decades Tal and those of his generation have concealed the truth about the relation of forces between Jews and Arabs when the war broke out, and they have not taken responsibility for this flawed functioning. Despite the contradictory data, Tal has adhered to his false version, and has built a doctrine of national defense on it and on similar versions, deriving from the same war and from other wars. There would not be such great importance to this subject, if Tal had not been deputy chief of staff in the Yom Kippur War and one of the main responsible parties for the collapse of the IDF and the Israeli defense doctrine in October 1973, and if he had not served since then as a very senior advisor to every defense minister. Tal was responsible for developing the Galilim Bridge at the beginning of the 1970s, and he received the Israel Defense Prize for this. He was responsible for the advancement of Shmuel Gonen (Gorodish) from brigade commander in the Six Day War to failed commanding general in the Yom Kippur War. The desire to bring the Galilim Bridge to the Suez Canal was the main excuse for the campaign of Chinese Farm on October 15-18, in which hundreds of IDF soldiers were killed. Tal's book provides an explanation for the collapse in the Yom Kippur War. If men for whom this is the level of their understanding of the army and war stand at the head of the Israeli defense system, collapse of the defense establishment, and collapse of its defense doctrine cannot be prevented. And they therefore collapsed in the Second Lebanon War in July/August 2006 – not only because of the negative contribution of Yisrael Tal, but also because of the readiness of Israelis to turn Yisrael Tal into "Mr. Defense." Decision Making In Operation Nachshon On March 31, 1948, David Ben Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency administration, who also held the defense portfolio, made one of his most important strategic decisions. – Namely, to abandon the "Fabian" strategy (postponement of decisions) that had guided the moves of Haganah in the first four months of the war. Ben Gurion ordered the exposure of fronts and the crystallizing of at least one operational brigade to break through the siege on Jerusalem, and to take control of the road to it from the coastal plane and over all the routes that have command over it. This was the decision for Operation Nachshon. Yigal Yadin, the Haganah operations officer and in fact chief of staff, a opposed this decision, and most of the officers in the general headquarters, who participated in the discussion that took place in Ben Gurion's home, shared Yadin's opinion. This hurried decision of Ben Gurion's is discussed at length in all the research studies and books about the War of Independence. Most of the historians, writers of memoirs and authors, surmise that Ben Gurion decided to halt postponement of decisions because he assessed that Hebrew Jerusalem was under siege, no going out and no coming in, and intensification of the siege was liable to endanger not only the existence of the Jews of Jerusalem, but also establishment of the Hebrew state. They have not expressed disagreement over Ben Gurion's assessment and considerations. They have further claimed that he understood more than the heads of Haganah which strategy to choose, even though they were more experienced than he in bringing military force into action. And indeed Hebrew Jerusalem did not fall and the state of Israel was established; which is to say, the quality of Ben Gurion's decision making was the very best. Regarding my claim, the historians, writers of memoirs and authors have erred. Here are the main facts: On March 25, a large convoy reached Jerusalem, that was not attacked on the road. Dozens of vehicles that reached Jerusalem in this convoy, left for Gush Etzion on March 27. On their way back to Jerusalem they encountered a road block that Arabs near Dehaishe set up, south of Bethlehem, and gunfire was opened on them. This was the battle of the "Nebi Daniel convoy." In this battle most of the trucks, busses and armored cars escorting the convoy were destroyed or captured. The commander of the sixth battalion of Palmach, Tzvi Zamir, abandoned most of his soldiers and returned, together with a few of them, to Gush Etzion. Aryeh Amit (Tefer), commander of the forward guard platoon took command of the encircled force in Dehaishe. Ben Gurion did not know the details of the battle of Nebi Daniel at the end of March 1948, and also not afterward, until the end of his life. His main source about this battle was his close associate Mishal Shaham, an aide to Yigal Yadin on the subject of the war of the roads, 79 who traveled in the convoy in Tzvi Zamir's armored car. Shaham fled the battle field with Zamir, and flew to Tel Aviv, in a Haganah plane, before the battle involving Tefer and his soldiers was concluded. He had an interest in not reporting the truth to Ben Gurion. Lacking detailed information Ben Gurion was unable to understand that it wasn't the Arab force that was getting stronger at that stage of the war, but rather the Jewish force was functioning badly – because the brigade commanders lacked battle experience – and commanders of squads and platoons, who were much more experienced, were then taking command over the convoys. No one took the trouble to explain these happenings to Ben Gurion, most of the commanders did not understand them, and those that did understand were not interested in disclosing them. A Haganah military convoy was organized and planned to leave from Tel Aviv for Dehaishe to rescue the ones who were encircled, but these were liberated, through British intervention, before the convoy went on its way, Therefore the convoy's objective was changed and it was charged with transporting reinforcements and supplies to Jerusalem. This was the "Hulda Convoy." The events of the Hulda Convoy battle are described above. The commander of this battle, the battalion commander Yosef Tabenkin, was definitely not interested in truthfully reporting what happened. He traveled to Tel Aviv and provided the head of the Haganah national command center, Yisrael Galili, with a false description of the events. Battalion commander Tabenkin's conclusion, that the road to Jerusalem was blocked, was not only an elaboration of his distorted report, it was also aimed to aid in advancing his national-strategic concept: to halt the method of attached convoys, to occupy all of western Palestine, to deport the Arabs from it and destroy their villages. 80 "The Hulda Convoy" was, as mentioned, the first convoy in the War of Independence that left Jerusalem and came back, because its commanders, Yaffe, Tabenkin, Horev and Ben Ari were not experienced in transporting convoys or in the war of the roads. Yisrael Galili did not know the facts and did not understand the military realities. His main interest was to protect the Palmach against Ben Gurion's intention to dismantle it. He did not try to verify Tabenkin's report, but relayed it immediately to Ben Gurion. By virtue of this false information Ben Gurion, the leader of the Hebrew settlement, decided that night to launch Operation Nachshon within twenty four hours, which is to say to abandon the strategy of postponing decisions and to move over to a strategy of decision. He also did not check what really happened near Hulda. Ben Gurion did not know the details of the military reality on the main front, between the coastal plane and Jerusalem. He made a revolutionary decision in a hurry, on the basis of a false report that he received second hand. This decision gave rise to the problem of the Palestinian refugees. This process was flawed. Ben Gurion did not try to verify the report he received. He did not travel to Hulda, a distance of less than an hour from Tel Aviv, he did not talk with deputy commanders or with soldiers and also did not send Yigal Yadin to check what happened, or if what happened justified a revolutionary change and endangering other fronts. If he had known the truth, and if he had drawn correct lessons from what happened in the sector of the road to Jerusalem between March 25 to 31, perhaps he would have derived these conclusions: The road from Jerusalem to Gush Etzion is blocked. The functioning of the Palmach battalion commanders in this sector is very bad and some of them are behaving as cowards under battle conditions. One cannot rely on reports of the Palmach commanders. One cannot rely on the reasoning of Yisrael Galili. Consequently a revolutionary change of strategy was not required for the Hebrew settlement, but a revolutionary change in the organization of the force, its structure and command system, so that it would be possible to implement the strategy that was fixed at the beginning of the war. Ben Gurion did not have advisers that were adapted to aid him in seeing the military reality as it was. He had and does have historians that have covered up and continue to cover up his failures and oversights. Not only was Ben Gurion's functioning as war captain flawed, also flawed was the functioning of the acting chief of staff and head of the operations branch, Yigal Yadin, who planned the operation. Yadin appointed Shimon Abidan, Givati brigade commander, who did not have battle experience, as commander of Operation Nachshon, and he appointed Yosef Tabenkin, Haim Laskov and Eldad Auerbach as battalion commanders for this operation. Just as Ben Gurion, Yadin also was not aware of the details about the war of the road to Jerusalem. On the basis of reports from Yosef Tabenkin, Yadin stationed two battalions in the Hulda sector, while in the Shaar Hagay – Kiryat Anavim sector, the main sector in the war of the roads, he stationed only one battalion, commanded by Tabenkin. He situated the operation command center in Kibbutz Nan, not far from Hulda, so that it would be near the Givati brigade and the main force of the operation. Consequently, the Nachshon commander and two thirds of the operation forces were far from the main happenings. Tabenkin, commander of the main sector, was not fit for his post. The result: the Jews did not take control over the road from the coastal plane to Jerusalem in Operation Nachshon, and also not in the operations that came after it, Harel, Yebusi, Maccabee A and B, Ben Nun A and B and Yoram. In these operations there was no breakthrough on the road but it became even more blocked. The blocking of the road, on account of flawed organization, was a result of the command weakness and psychological weakness of the commanders. Very many were killed in vain in this campaign. According to the logic of Netanel Lorch, Avigor Ben Gal and Ron Ben Yishay, this is a reason for not exposing the flaws, lest the bereaving families be hurt. After bitter battles, that continued for more than two months, an engineering solution was found to the problem of the road to Jerusalem. At the beginning of June 1948, men of Solel Boneh broke through on "Burma Road", which Aryeh Amit (Tefer) discovered while walking with two other men from Jerusalem to Hulda. This road was a sufficient replacement for the Tel Aviv - Jerusalem highway. One of the reasons for the failure of the military operations that were aimed to open this highway was the flawed quality of the decision making process, and I mean the decision makers of every rank: David Ben Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency administration, Yigal Yadin, acting chief of staff, Yitzhak Rabin, Harel brigade commander, Yosef Tabenkin, commander of the fourth battalion, Uri Ben Ari, commander of Palmach company A, and many other men. Most of the books and research studies about the War of Independence, some of which are mentioned above, praise and exalt Ben Gurion's decision as a once in a generation decision. The claim that Ben Gurion understood the military circumstances better than all the senior and experienced army men, even though he did not have military training or military experience, has been part of the heritage of the War of Independence, and the strategic history of the state of Israel. This has granted legitimacy to "the vision" in the field of security-strategy, of national leaders that did not have training or understanding in this field. This is also one of the reasons for the flaws in the function of prime minister and defense minister Levy Eshkol in the crisis of the three weeks of waiting that preceded the Six Day War; of prime minister Golda Meir in the period that preceded the Yom Kippur War and in the Yom Kippur War; of prime minister Menachem Begin in the Lebanon War; of prime minister Yitzhak Shamir at the beginning of the Intifada; of prime minister and defense minister Yitzhak Rabin in the small scale fighting against Hizbullah in South Lebanon, and the anti-terrorism war against Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip before the Oslo Accords; of prime minister and defense minister Shimon Peres in the affair of Operation Grapes of Wrath and the fighting against the terrorism of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the affair of the Western Wall tunnel and the Mt. Homa affair, to name a few. Yitzhak Levy's Book "Nine Measures" Most of the research studies on the War of Independence are flawed, albeit there is a pronounced difference between the flaws in the manipulative publications of Dr. Meir Payil and Dr. Netanel Lorch and the flaws in the publications of Prof. Benny Morris, Prof. Yoav Gelber and Aryeh Yitzhaki. The publications of the latter are the result of honest research effort; the publications of the former are contaminated by the suspicion that they are aimed to serve an unscientific inclination of the researcher and/or the group to which he belongs. Nevertheless, they cannot be viewed as completely invalid. Before adopting the data of Lorch, Payil and the like, it is worthwhile to check their credibility, but it is also fitting to remember that these researchers, who come from the very heart of the defense establishment had access to information that one doubts if others could ever reach. Propagandists and public relations people are also a source. An example of a research study whose author was not objective and was not skilled in any research methodology, who was directed by personal interests, and even inclined to mislead the reader, but nonetheless is not to be ruled out, is the research study of Yitzhak Levy (Levitza) about Jerusalem in the War of Independence, that was published in his book "Nine Measures" (1986) a. When the War of Independence broke out Levy was commander of the Haganah intelligence service in the Jerusalem district. The intelligence service had a political character, and its commanders were chosen mainly according to their loyalty to the heads of the political hierarchy. Considerations like ability to organize a research campaign and understanding of the experience of the army and war were not taken into account. Levy was loyal to Ben Gurion. One of the reasons for the failures which the Jerusalem district suffered was flawed intelligence. Around five months after the war broke out, Levy was dismissed from his post and Benjamin Gibli took his place (after establishment of the state Gibli was head of army intelligence, and became entangled in "The Affair" in Egypt). Levy was involved in one of the worst failures of the Jews in the War of Independence: the explosion of a car bomb in the courtyard of the national institutions buildings in Jerusalem (on March 11, 1948). The perpetrator of the bombing, Anton Daud Kamilin, was Levy's agent. An Armenian who worked as a driver in the American consulate in Jerusalem, Karmilin was a double agent. His personal handler on the Jewish side was the head of the intelligence service's Arab department in Jerusalem, Yitzhak Navon, Levy's subordinate b. Following the explosion in the national institutions buildings, the outer wall of two stories of the building was destroyed, part of the wing collapsed, seven people were killed and hundreds wounded. Ben Gurion's office was not far from the place of the explosion, and only by chance Ben Gurion was not in his office at that moment. This event stunned the Jews and it raised the morale of the Arabs very much. In the American administration it strengthened the element that opposed the establishment of the state of Israel. Despite superficial investigations of the Haganah and the Jewish agency, the oversights of Levy and Navon were disclosed. The head of the national intelligence service, Baruch Guriel, has told me that in Ben Gurion's view the explosion at the national institutions buildings was one of the great failures of the Jews in the War of Independence. 81 The Jewish Agency administration decided to put four men holding senior posts in the district on trial, and the first one charged was Yitzhak Levy. His subordinate, Navon, was also supposed to stand trial. A court with three judges was assembled, but the trial did not take place, because the commander of the Jerusalem district, David Shaltiel (who was before then commander of the intelligence service) demanded that the Jewish Agency trial be cancelled and be replaced by an internal trial under the authority of the Haganah district. Ben Gurion, who was preoccupied with the war crisis (end of March), and the withdrawal of the support of the United States for establishment of a Jewish state, accepted Shaltiel's demand. In the internal trial, a scapegoat was found – a junior member of the Haganah organization. The heads of the Jerusalem district, who covered for each other, came out of the affair clean it seems, but the head of the intelligence service, Isser Harel, dismissed Levy from his post. In Nine Measures Levy tries to remove the stain he acquired from this affair. Whoever learns the details of the affair only according to Levy's book could think that Levy deserved a mark of commendation for his performance then. As a figure in the ideological arm of Mapai, Levy revealed a knack for survival. a A short time after he was dismissed from his post in the intelligence service, he was appointed to a post in the Guard Corps (battalion 69), even though he did not have experience in commanding a battle unit. Afterward he was appointed commander of the northern area of Jerusalem, commander of the district and commander of the district brigade. He concluded his IDF service as a brigade commander. After his discharge he was deputy director general of the prime minister's office and director of its public relations center. After retiring, he asked for and received from the head of the IDF history department, permission to work in the department as a volunteer, to read the documents that relate to Jerusalem in the War of Independence, to organize them and give them proper interpretation. b He worked on this for around ten years. 82 He examined the documents, photographed many of them and he copied and summarized others, and finally he wrote the book that surprised the staff of the history department. As far as they were concerned, it was not for this purpose was that Levy was given permission to examine all the documents. As is customary in the defense establishment, in such cases, Levy received the title "Institutional Researcher". His book passed through the history department's internal censorship, and it was published, with light omissions by the IDF publishers Ma'arachot, as a semi-official book. This book is filled with inaccuracies and distortions, and according to it Levy comes out clean with respect to the oversight in the affair of the explosion in the national institutions buildings. All his acts are deserving of praise, while his adversaries in Haganah, including the district commanders Yisrael Amir and David Shaltiel are black as can be. Levy's other analyses, that have no relation to his personal interests, and are based on common sense alone. I met with him at some discussions on the topic of Jerusalem in the War of Independence. When I commented to him about severe flaws in his book, he replied: "after all I'm not an historian." Levy was not satisfied by writing subjectively about the events of the War of Independence in Jerusalem.He also covered up traces and hid evidence. Eliahu Arbel, who was operations officer B of the Etzioni brigade in 5708 (1948) has related to me that in his testimony before the IDF History Department he noted that Levy was one of the guilty parties in the disaster of the Hadassah Convoy. Levy read his testimony, phoned him and demanded that he erase it. Arbel admitted to me that he revealed weakness of character, erased his testimony and gave another version to the IDF archive, where the testimonies are preserved. He even showed me the old testimony, the new testimony and the letters between him and Levy about this matter. Aryeh Amit (Tefer) who examined many files of documents in the IDF archive before it was computerized, encountered again and again documents that were damaged or ruined. Among them were testimonies about Levy's failures and oversights. Nevertheless, Nine Measures is a very important source for research on the happenings in Jerusalem during the War of Independence. In his book many documents are brought up that have no relation to him and which he had no interest in eliminating, and one doubts if in the future someone else will reach all these documents. Aryeh Yitzhaki's Book "Latrun" Aryeh Yitzhaki, who was born in 1944, did not, of course, take part in the War of Independence and was also not a senior officer in IDF service. He learned general history in Tel Aviv University, and in the 1960s worked in the IDF History Department. According to his testimony, he was archive director in the Department for three years, and read a great deal of material about all of Israel's wars. At the end of the 1960s, according to him, he resigned from the History Department following differences of opinion with his direct superiors and with the IDF heads, regarding research on the Six Day War and the process of deriving lessons from this war. Yitzhaki: "After the Six Day War Lench (Avraham Ayalon, head of the IDF History Department) told me to write a preliminary summary for the chief of staff. I worked on the material and I discovered that besides the great successes there were failures, both in organization and in fighting doctrine. Inasmuch as I was young and reckless, I wrote a critique about generals. At eleven at night, before presentation of the material to the chief of staff, I received a panicked phone call from Lench: Come immediately to the department. I went and he attacked me: 'Tell me, what kind of report did you write?' I told him: 'Excuse me I wrote as befit the reports and according to research of other officers.' He said: 'You have a lot of nerve. How dare you write about generals? Go home now, I will fix it.' He erased the critique, watered it down considerably and presented it. This was a report that led to deriving lessons. In the department they rewrote the history of the Six Day War, mainly for the benefit of defense minister Moshe Dayan. When I saw that nothing shifted, I quit." 85 Yitzhaki was one of the people who read the writing on the wall. Indeed, the flawed research into the Six Day War is one of the causes for the collapse of Israel's defense doctrine in the Yom Kippur War and the IDF's moral corruption since then and until today. Only one of Yitzhaki's research studies was published: "Latrun – The Campaign On The Road To Jerusalem", two volumes (1982). The efforts of the defense establishment to prevent publication of this book, with legal proceedings and various claims, establish the claim that the defense establishment is trying to hide the truth about wars from the public. For some years, publication of "Latrun" was prevented. But it was finally published when Yitzhaki's attorney Shmuel Tamir was appointed as Justice Minister (in Menachem Begin's government). The country did not make a lot of noise. The approach of the media to "Latrun" was marginal and its direct and immediate influence was minor. In "Latrun" Yitzhaki describes in great detail and without favoritism, one of the most difficult episodes in the War of Independence, and he paid a heavy price for that. This book is based on many documents but there is practically no reference to archival sources, and it is impossible to check them. In Yitzhak Levy's book, on the other hand, the archival sources are proudly noted. This is the difference between someone in confrontation with the defense establishment and someone who exploited it and adjusted himself to it. In addition to the absence of his archival source notes, "Latrun" has some flaws: Yitzhaki adhered to the traditional methods of researching history and collected almost no testimonies from people that were involved in the battle. He does not reconstruct events with the assistance of key testimonies. His accessibility to the archives enabled him to find inconsistencies in the documents, and he devotes most of his attention to these inconsistencies. He did the research alone, was not helped by other researchers. and he satisfied himself with only referencing the data. He did not have the tools to check the reliability of the data, and more than a few descriptions in his book transgress the principle that historian Hans Delbruck has stated, the principle of the feasibility of analyzing battles. 86 Yoav Gelber's Book "Nucleus Of A Regular Hebrew Army" In 1972 Haim Laskov suggested to me that I write a history of the Hebrew volunteers for the British army in the days of the Second World War, and to provide details about the place they filled (namely, Laskov and his comrades) in the War of Independence, and their influence on the establishment of the IDF when discharged from the British army. He assured me that all of the archives would be open to me and that I would receive generous funding. I rejected the suggestion and I am not sorry about that. After the Yom Kippur War, Laskov was a member of the "Agranat Commission", and made the same suggestion to the commission secretary Yoav Gelber, who served in the IDF in paratroop units and other units, and reached the rank of Colonel. Gelber studied history in university. For his research project, on the history of volunteering in the military, he received a doctorate degree, and he published his findings in four volumes with the Ben Tzvi Institution, which is an institution for both research and instruction tied to the Israeli establishment. As of the writing of these lines, Gelber is a history professor at Haifa University, and one of the leading researchers in Israeli military history. His research study, "Roots Of The Lily, Intelligence In The Jewish Settlement 1918 – 1947", which was not published because of the demands of security censorship, is one of the most intriguing and spoken about research studies among researchers of Israel's wars. In his book "Nucleus Of A Regular Hebrew Army (1986), Gelber describes how the Haganah organization became an army framework in 1947, and the first half of 1948, and how the IDF was crystallized after the declaration of independence.He also highlights the role of those discharged from the British army in this process. There are 557 pages in the book and it also deals with war events, albeit not as a main topic. From the foreword to "Nucleus Of A Regular Hebrew Army" it is possible to learn that Gelber received what Laskov and his comrades offered to him. He writes: "Haim Laskov (of blessed memory) was the initiator of this book, as he was of the whole enterprise of "The Book Of The History Of Volunteering", and he did much so that I would have the ability to bring it to fruition." With the aid of his patrons, Gelber gained lawful access to classified files in the IDF archives and in other archives, and so he brought to fruition, at least partially, the empirical conditions that Charles Pearce established for scientific research. Regarding his objectivity, there were objectors (in particular those who were hurt by his research study, such as former members of Palmach, those disagreeing with Laskov and his patron Ben Gurion; but indeed the Association of Discharged Soldiers, whose members fought in The War of Independence, supported Gelber). For the most part, however, he maintained research objectivity and presented credibly, according to the extant archival documents, the process of the establishment of the Hebrew army during war, through establishment of the state, and the establishment of the IDF after the Declaration of Independence. Gelber's book stands up to all the severe criteria of a work of scientific history. But in its faithfulness to the discipline of history it is deficient. Gelber interviewed practically no one (although he did use testimonies collected by others, that were preserved in the archive), and he was not aided by theories and concepts in the field of behavioral science. In my opinion, therefore, his book does not reach the corner stone of the researched field, and it has holes and distortions like most books of military history. In its descriptions of the siege on Jerusalem and Ben Gurion's decision about Operation Nachshon, Gelber repeats the distortions that appear in other research studies, based on documents and testimonies that he read in the archives. Gelber devotes much space to Operation Nachshon, because of its importance, and perhaps also because Ben Gurion's greatness, as it were, is revealed in it, and because Haim Laskov then received command of a battalion. Gelber has written: "Ben Gurion located the vital point in the campaign for Jerusalem and protection of the road to it. He put into action all of his weight and authority in order to induce the general headquarters to concentrate a force that would manage to achieve a decision in this district. He also understood that without going beyond the operational and intellectual norm of the first months of the war, Jerusalem was liable to fall. The fall of Jerusalem would represent an important step in the plan of the Arabs to take control of the country, and perhaps even bring about a break in the fighting desire of the Jewish settlement." 87 Ben Gurion perhaps exhibited uncommon thinking in this episode, although not necessarily positive. Gelber, on the other hand, followed his predecessors, and his analysis is in error like theirs. He has based himself on quotes from transcripts of meetings of the defense committee on March 30, and on April 1, 1948, that he found in the Central Zionist Archive. In these meetings representatives of the parties (Yisrael Galili, Yakov Riftin and others) spoke who did not know the details of the events and did not understand the reality at the front. At least some of them were interested in compelling Ben Gurion to escalate the war. Authors of many of the documents on which Gelber and other historians have relied were not aware of the military reality or have tried to blur it If Gelber had studied the pathology of the events well with the aid of interviews and behavioral models, he would likely have avoided this mistake and similar mistakes in his book. This happened because he relied on documents alone. Yoav Gelber's "Nucleus Of A Regular Hebrew Army" is an important secondary source, on which one should not concede. But it does not have definitive research even on its main topic, and it is almost impossible to employ it to understand military developments after the War of Independence that are based in 1948. The Purpose Of This Book Israel's ruling groups employ the narrative and the memory of the War of Independence in order to advance their personal and group interests: Ben Gurion and his aides – in order to strengthen his control in the country; Palmach members – in order to advance their careers in the IDF and in order to take over from Ben Gurion and his aides after their resignations; writers, journalists and academics – in order to find favor in the eyes of those who rule, to advance their careers and to derive budgets and prizes from them. The result of this reckless behavior, that is a disaster in waiting, is the development of a defense sub-culture that is built on baseless myths and on manipulation. This defense sub-culture has had two long range results. The defense system in general, and the IDF in particular, have developed a pattern of non-exposure of flaws, and as a result of this a pattern of not learning of lessons. The same flaws repeat themselves again and again in all the wars and take a heavy toll. The generation of the War of Independence was prepared to pay a dear price for faulty preparation for war – one percent of the population fell in the war. The next generations were less generous toward the ruling groups. The flawed functioning of the IDF in its wars took an intolerable toll. This consequently motivated a revolt of the cannon fodder, at least since the War of Attrition, but also after the Six Day War, which expressed itself in open and hidden refusal, absence of national consensus about defense policy, and the IDF's moves, and increasing criticism of IDF moves. The result: a process of conceding on national objectives and strategic objectives, that reached its climax in the Oslo Accords of 1993, as a result of the IDF's defeat in the first Intifada, the IDF's flight from Southern Lebanon in 2000, as a result of Hizbullah's victory over the IDF in the small scale war that was conducted there, and the flight of the state of Israel from Gush Katif in 2005, as a result of the defeat of the IDF in the second Intifada. Even though we are a fighting society, most Israelis, including senior IDF commanders have stayed far from in-depth study of army and war experience. Instead of studying, recognizing and understanding the most important phenomenon in the state of Israel, they satisfy themselves with newspaper gossip and the myths of inner court writers. The absence of in-depth defense discussion among Israelis strengthens the monopoly of the army staff over defense thinking. And when they are discharged, they go into politics and have become "directors of the nation" A prominent example of this is Lt. Gen. Ehud Barak who failed as chief of staff in the small scale war in South Lebanon. But four and a half years after he retired from the IDF, he defeated Benjamin Netanyahu in the general elections and served as prime minister and defense minister. He convinced a majority of Israelis that the IDF should flee from South Lebanon where he was defeated, and allowed Hizbullah to establish on Israel's northern border a guerilla army, equipped with missiles of all kinds. Many Israelis paid a price in life and property in the war that broke out between Hizbullah and Israel in 2006. So that the state of Israel will neutralize the threats against it at a tolerable cost and assure its existence, the defense establishment must expose its flaws and derive lessons. That is how its collapse will be prevented. To that end Israeli society must establish a well-founded and critical dialogue about the army and about war. Only thus is it possible to develop a relevant and effective defense program that will be adjusted not to the interests of members of the ruling groups but to the almost impossible reality of defense, in which the state of Israel has been immersed since its establishment. If readers approach the messages of this book with all seriousness, it will motivate a process of basic reform in our defense culture and this will be our compensation. 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