1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (51 page)

The air forces of Egypt, Syria, and Iraq (Jordan and Lebanon had none), though relatively formidable on paper, in fact counted for little. Many of Egypt's fighters and bombers were unserviceable; few of its pilots were competent; ground control, aircraft maintenance, and air intelligence were all poor to appalling. The same applied for the much smaller Syrian and Iraqi air forces. Because of losses and diminishing stocks of ammunition and spare parts, all these air forces contracted during the war.

By contrast, the IAF grew steadily. The first four (Messerschmitt) fighters arrived in mid-May-and went into action on 29 and 30 May. By i i June eleven Messerschmitts were operational and by 12 August twenty-five.

The Egyptian air force, using bombers and Spitfires, repeatedly attacked Israeli air fields, ground forces, rural settlements, and towns. Few casualties were caused, and these gradually fell off as Israeli air power grew and interception became more effective. In Tel Aviv, which was repeatedly hit by Egyptian air raids, more than forty civilians were killed. Most died on i8 May at the central bus station.

Following the Messerschmitt attacks on the Egyptian and Iraqi columns, Egyptian fighters repeatedly hit 'Eqron Airfield, where the Israeli fighters were based. On 30 May Egyptian bombers, aiming for `Egron, hit the center of the town of Rehovot, including the Sieff (later, Weizmann) Institute, killing seven and wounding thirty. The following day, they hit `Egron Air field, hitting two partially assembled Messerschmitts.373

In part a response to the Egyptian air attacks and in part a gut response to the Jordanian victories at Latrun, Ben-Gurion decided to bomb the Arab capitals. He seemed to think-based on his memories of the German Blitz against London-that air power could prove decisive (though given the poverty of Israeli resources, this was plain silly): "Our air force has to bomb and destroy Amman. The weak link in the Arab coalition is Lebanon.... When we break the [Arab] Legion's power and we bomb Amman, we will also destroy Transjordan, and then Syria will fall. If Egypt will still dare to fight-we will bomb Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo. And thus we will end the war-and pay back for [the treatment of our forefathers by] Egypt, Assyria [that is, ancient Iraq] and Aram [that is, ancient Syria]."374

In the early morning hours of i June, two IAF Rapids and one Bonanza flew to Amman and dropped several dozen fifty-five- and i io-pound bombs on the town, the king's palace and the adjacent air field (under British control).375 About a dozen persons died and a number of (British) aircraft were hit. The British warned Israel that if this recurred, they would hit its air fields and aircraft.376 Israel did not bomb Amman again.

Ten days later, early on ii June, hours before the First Truce came into effect, a lone Dakota, loaded to the gills with 176-pound bombs and incendiaries, took off from `Egron, heading for Damascus. It was crewed by seven Britons and South Africans. Flying northward, they could see Haifa to the west, "lit up like a Christmas tree." At 3:12 AM the first bomb was thrown out of the rear door by two crewmen. In all, the plane made six passes over the Syrian capital, delivering sixteen high explosive bombs and ninety fourpound incendiaries, dispersed indiscriminately. The Syrians were caught completely by surprise; they sent up no interceptors, and antiaircraft fire only began ten minutes after the plane had left the area. A Western journalist who witnessed the bombing later wrote that twenty-two Syrians died and more than a hundred were injured, and it "put the fear of God into the inhabitants of Damascus."377 More significant, it forced the Syrians to think seriously about bolstering their air defenses and resulted in a diminution of their aerial activity over Israel during the following bout of fighting, in mid-July.

If air activity, on both sides, was largely of nuisance value and failed seriously to affect the ground fighting, naval operations were even of smaller significance during May and June 1948.

Both sides used boats to ferry supplies and reinforcements to advancing ground units: the Haganah landed 4$o troops and tons of ammunition and fuel in Nahariya during Operation Ben-Ami, and the Egyptians ferried troops and equipment to Majdal and Isdud during their advance up the coastal road (indeed, the first landing of Egyptian troops at Majdal took place on 14 May, a day before the start of the ground invasion).378

The only significant offensive naval operation took place on 2-4 June. On 2 June, an Egyptian corvette briefly shelled Qisariya, where there was a small Israeli naval station, and then withdrew, causing no injuries and little damage. On the morning of 4 June, a three-boat Egyptian flotilla (a corvette, a landing craft, and an armed troop carrier) were sighted off Tel Aviv, appar ently aiming to shell the city or launch a commando raid. The ships were engaged by the small frigate Eilat, the Israel Navy's only armed ship, but the larger Egyptian guns kept it at bay after scoring several hits. Three IAF light aircraft intervened, strafing and bombing the Egyptians as they maneuvered off Jaffa. One boat was hit by a bomb, and the Egyptians called it a day. Throwing up smokescreens, they sailed back to Port Said. One Israeli aircraft was shot down. 379

The result of the four-week contest between the Haganah/IDF and the invading Arab armies was an Israeli victory. The Arabs had enjoyed major advantages (the initiative, vastly superior firepower), and in retrospect, this was the only period in which they could have won the war or made major territorial gains at Jewish expense. But they failed. In effect, they were stopped in their tracks-the Syrians establishing a line just west of the old international border at Tel al-Qasir, with a symbolic gain at Mishmar Hayarden; the Jordanians and Iraqis occupying territory allotted to the Palestinian Arabs (except for the Jewish Quarter of the Old City); and the Egyptians more or less reaching the northern limit of the southern chunk of Palestine allotted the Arabs, at Isdud-though they did cut off the northern Negev settlements enclave and the Negev Brigade.

The Israelis had suffered many casualties. But they had contained the fourpronged assault. And their army was far larger and better armed at the end of the four weeks than at the beginning. The invaders had failed to destroy any large Haganah/IDF formations. The Israelis had held on to much of the territory earmarked for their state, and in some areas-Jaffa, Western Galilee, the Jerusalem Corridor-had substantially added to their holdings. Moreover, after the first fortnight's containment battles, the Haganah/IDF had moved over to the offensive on all fronts. By early June, the Israelis had caused the Arabs sufficient casualties and shock to persuade them to shelve any thought of further advance. The Israelis may have been unsuccessful in their initial counterattacks (Latrun, Isdud, Jenin). But the strategic initiative had passed from Arab into Israeli hands and was to remain there for the duration of the war. And, politically, the Israelis enjoyed hesitant international support whereas the Arabs were commonly seen as the aggressors.

But, like the Arabs, the Israelis were thankful for the long breather provided by the truce. Subsequently, Moshe Carmel said: "The truce came down upon us like dew from heaven. The formations are tired, weary."380

The First Truce came into effect on ii June, the result of weeks of shuttle diplomacy by Count Folke Bernadotte, the United Nations' special mediator for Palestine.

On i4 May the UN General Assembly had voted for the appointment of a "Mediator" to assure the safety of the holy places, to safeguard the wellbeing of the population, and to promote "a peaceful adjustment of the future situation of Palestine." Achieving an Israeli-Arab peace settlement was to be the focus of Bernadotte's efforts during the following four months.

He was appointed mediator by UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie on 20 May. Though hampered by dyslexia, Bernadotte had been deputy head of the Swedish Red Cross and during World War II had saved thousands, including many Jews, from the Nazis. He knew next to nothing about the Middle East or Palestine, and the haste of his appointment had allowed him little opportunity for study.

When Bernadotte arrived in Paris on 25 May, on the first leg of his mission to the Middle East, Ralph Bunche, the black American intellectual appointed by Lie as his deputy, thought that Bernadotte and his elegant wife, Estelle, "gave the impression of going to a party" Bunche had been a key (and highly effective) official on UNSCOP and was well versed in the affairs of Palestine. Bernadotte was to acquire a rudimentary knowledge about the problem, and its possible solution, during his two-day Paris stopover, where he met British, UN, Zionist, and French officials. On arriving at Le Bourget Airport, Bernadotte, at their first meeting, asked Bunche: "What do they want me to do there, in Palestine?" Bunche: "To go and stop the war." Bernadotte: "How?" Bunche: "With bare hands." Bernadotte: "O.K., let's go."2 The two men were to form an efficient team-the gung-ho Swedish aristocrat, "optimistic ... and eager for action," and the "overcautious" and pessimistic African American from Detroit-the "humanitarian" Don Quixote and his faithful, ruminating Sancho Panza, as one historian was to put it. -3

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council on as May had called for a truce, to begin forty-eight hours later-while, under British threat of veto, avoiding branding the Arab states the "aggressors." The Israelis agreed immediately. But the Arabs demurred, their generals still hoping for victory or at least to overrun more of Palestine. The British were unhappy: their Jordanian wards had occupied the territory agreed upon, more or less, in the February meeting between Prime Minister Tawfiq Abul Huda and Foreign Secretary Bevin but were now enmeshed in a war with the Jews that they might well lose. And the advance of the other Arab armies had bogged down-indeed, all were threatened with defeat, which the world might interpret as a British defeat and the Arab world as a fruit of British perfidy (the Arabs never tired of portraying the British as Zionism's patron and ally-much as leading Zionists never relented in depicting the British as the Arabs' patron and backer). Last, against the backdrop of the pan-Arab assault, the British feared that Zionist pressure on Washington would persuade the Americans to lift their embargo and arm the Israelis, with dire consequences for Arab arms and Anglo-American amity.