1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (24 page)

Almost simultaneously, an even deadlier ambush raged in Western Galilee. On 27 March, a seven-vehicle convoy, carrying eighty-nine men and women, was attacked on the road to the besieged Kibbutz Yehiam by units of the ALA's Second Yarmuk Battalion and local militiamen. The HIS had received specific information from a Druze agent and had warned that the Arabs were massing-but in light ofYehiam's plight, the convoy's commander had decided to proceed. The ambush was sprung near the village of Kabri. The lead armored car managed to break through to Yehiam. But the remaining vehicles were stopped and subjected to withering fire. By late evening, all were burning, though some three dozen Haganah men escaped on foot to Jewish settlements. The Carmeli Brigade had no ready relief force, and although a British unit managed to reach the area and shell Kabri, it failed to link up with the convoy. The following morning, the British and Haganah found forty-seven bodies, many of them mutilated. Arab losses were reportedly three to six dead and a handful ofwounded.171

A further disaster followed four days later. The situation of Jewish Jerusalem was precarious. "There is panic.... There may be food riots," wrote the head of the Jerusalem HIS, Yitzhak Levy.171 The city verged on collapse. The Haganah readied a thirty-seven-vehicle convoy, loaded with reinforcements and supplies. It set out from Kibbutz Hulda on the morning of 31 March. But the previous night Haganah troops had blown up a house and killed fifteen Arabs in the nearby village of Abu Shusha. And the convoy itself, as it started out, encountered an Arab bus and fired shots, killing the driver and wounding several passengers. The alarm was sounded in the surrounding villages and the militiamen were mustered. The convoy was to be targeted.

The Arabs began sniping, trucks were overturned, and battle was joined. The fighting was confused. A number of Arab armored cars raced to the scene. Palmahniks occupied dominant hilltops while some vehicles retreated back to Hulda; others, though, were stuck and under ferocious attack. The occupants of one vehicle committed suicide with dynamite rather than fall into Arab hands. (Jews captured in convoy battles were normally put to death and mutilated.) By nightfall, most of the Palmahniks extricated themselves and reached Hulda. But twenty-two Haganah men had died and sixteen were wounded, and four more vehicles were lost. Arab losses were eight dead. It was the first time a whole convoy had failed to make it to Jerusalem.173 In the last week of March, 136 supply trucks had tried to reach Jerusalem; only forty-one had made it. 171

Cunningham keenly noted the Zionists' desperation: "It is becoming increasingly apparent that the Yishuv and its leaders are deeply worried about the future. The intensification of Arab attacks on communications and particularly the failure of the Kfar `Etzion convoy ... to force a return passage has brought home the precarious position of Jewish communities, both great and small, which are dependent on supply lines running through Arab controlled country. In particular it is now realized that the position of Jewish Jerusalem, where a food scarcity already exists, is likely to be desperate after 16th May. The loss of Jewish armoured vehicles has shaken confidence in the belief that they are the answer to most problems of supply by road.... The balance of the fighting seems to have turned much in favour of the Arabs."175

By the end of March, the Yishuv had suffered about a thousand dead.176

The crisis the Zionist leadership faced was not only military: "It is becoming generally realized ... that the United States aim is to secure reconsideration of the Palestine problem by the General Assembly de novo," wrote Sir Alan Cunningham.' He was referring to the fact that the spiraling hostilities and the Arab successes had bitten deeply into international support for partition and Jewish statehood-as the Arab initiators of the violence had hoped.

Surprisingly, the first to get cold feet were the Americans. Already on 2 December 1947, Truman was gently cautioning the Zionists and their supporters: "The vote in the United Nations is only the beginning and the Jews must now display tolerance and consideration for the other people in Palestine with whom they will necessarily have to be neighbors."' A few weeks later, Secretary of State George Marshall put it more starkly when he reportedly told his staff that "he thought US Government may have made a mistake supporting partition."3

The hint at a reversal of course on partition, quite naturally, immediately stoked strong Zionist counterpressure-and American reaffirmations of support for partition, perhaps, as the British suggested, linked to electoral considerations (Truman and most members of Congress were up for election or reelection in November 1948).4 Nonetheless, by January the escalating Arab attacks and threats to intervene from outside Palestine began to take their toll in Washington. The British soon began toying with the idea of a formal "suspension of the partition plan" and the institution, in its stead, of a "trusteeship scheme." But they understood that this would become a realistic proposition only "after continued deterioration of situation in Palestine."-' Curiously, the idea may have been introduced to Whitehall by Lord (Herbert) Samuel, the pro-Zionist first Palestine high commissioner (19201925), at a meeting with Clement Attlee sometime in December 1947 or early January.6

By late January 1948, Zionist officials assessed that the US position was as it had been on 29 November 1947-meaning, great reluctance regarding "partition" overcome at the last minute by Truman's direct intervention.? But by February, the State Department seemingly had won over the president who, somewhat equivocally, informed Marshall that he approved "in principle this basic position"-that is, given the failure of a peaceful partition, to place Palestine under UN trusteeship.8 Inching toward trusteeship, Warren Austin, the US representative to the United Nations said that the Security Council was obliged to preserve peace, not force partition on the Arabs.' The State Department may even have envisioned London remaining in control, with the British "keeping their troops in Palestine until a final and peaceful settlement is achieved," in the words of James Reston of the New York Times.10 The Policy Planning Staff of the State Department argued that "the maintenance ... of a Jewish state" was contrary to the American "national interest" or "immediate strategic interests."11 During the following weeks, Truman may still have been wavering, but Marshall was under the impression that the president had plumped for trusteeship. He authorized Warren Austin to proceed with the formal announcement. 12 Austin himself was somewhat reluctant13 but in the end acceded14 and on 17 March formally broached the possibility at the Security Council. 1-5

Zionist lobbyists frantically maneuvered to parry the expected blow. At the last moment, they arranged a meeting between the great persuader, Chaim Weizmann, and the president. They met in the White House on 18 March. It is not completely clear what transpired. According to Margaret Truman, the president's daughter and biographer, and Zionist sources, Truman reiterated his support for partition, in which the Negev would be included in the Jewish state.16

So Austin's anti-partition statement at the Security Council the following day came as a bombshell, and not only for the Zionists. The American representative was no longer hesitant and suggestive; he spoke clearly and forthrightly, announcing a major policy volte-face: "There seems to be general agreement that the [partition] plan cannot now be implemented by peaceful means.... We believe that a temporary trusteeship for Palestine should be established under the Trusteeship Council ... without prejudice ... to the character of the eventual political settlement." He called on the council to instruct the Palestine Commission "to suspend its efforts to implement the proposed partition plan" and asked for a special session of the General Assembly to replace the partition resolution formally with one endorsing trusteeship.17

The Arabs were jubilant. The Jewish Agency rejected Austin's proposal as "a shocking reversal of [the US] position.... We are at an utter loss to understand the reason." It was apparently a capitulation to Arab violence, said Abba Hillel Silver, a spokesman for American Zionism. 18 The Soviets supported the Zionists.

Truman himself appears to have been genuinely shocked and unhappy with Austin's announcement. "The State Department pulled the rug from under me today," he jotted down. "The State Department has reversed my Palestine policy. The first I know about it is what I see in the papers! Isn't that hell? I am now in the position of a liar and a double-crosser." 9 But Marshall and the State Department later maintained that Truman had approved the Austin statement.20 Clearly there had been some crossed wires-but also, it appears, some crass insubordination. Truman's strong reaction may also have been influenced by the immediate, adverse American press responses to Austin's speech.21 In any event, Truman quickly reassured the Zionists that he stood by partition.

In the Yishuv, the Austin statement, which was followed by the terrible reverses along the roads, triggered a sense of catastrophe. "This is the most terrible day since the beginning of the war,"22 David Ben-Gurion cabled Moshe Shertok, in New York, on 28 March. Nowhere was the sense of looming disaster more acute than in West Jerusalem. "There is starvation [ raav]," reported Yitzhak Ben-Zvi from the embattled city.23 In veiled language, Yitzhak Levy, head of the Jerusalem HIS, hinted at a specific problem. "The character of the Yishuv [that is, Jewish community] in Jerusalem is special. The multiplicity of [ethnic Jewish] communities and asocial modes of life among the poor classes, create a very weak background for this type of bloody warfare that we [now] face. Bread riots, the incitement of the masses, robbery and extortion are likely to develop rapidly and to destroy the city's defenses."24 He was referring to the town's large ultra-Orthodox and Sephardi communities. Even abroad, the desperate straits of West Jerusalem-"the empty shelves in the shops, the queues whenever there is anything to buy and the general panicky feeling"-was attracting diplomatic and press attention.25 Jerusalem, in short, was-or appeared-on the verge of collapse.