1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (67 page)

Moreover, Israel had emerged from the fray with a major card in any future negotiations with Lebanon (and possibly Syria)-its occupation of a swath of south Lebanon. The conquest had a downside, which Foreign Minister Shertok, in Paris, was quick to point out; many viewed it as an unprovoked Israeli aggression, which might undermine Israel's position in the West. 14-3 But still, Israel had emerged with a concrete bird in hand.

As was its wont in occupied Arab-populated areas, Israel imposed military government on the core of the Galilee.144 The inhabitants, mostly deemed hostile or of doubtful loyalty, were subjected to a strict regimen of curfews and travel restrictions, which lasted, with a gradual easing of the strictures, until 1966. The Druze villagers were allowed to keep their weapons, and Christian villagers who had been transferred inland for security reasons were told that when conditions improved, a return to their villages would be considered. IDF units were instructed to bar the return of refugees from Lebanon.145

The fronts remained under truce and largely quiet during the second half of November and most of December. In Hiram and Yoav, the IDF had expanded Israel's holdings, demolished the ALA, badly hurt the Egyptians, and linked the Negev settlement enclave to Israel. But the Syrians still held three small enclaves, at Mishmar Hayarden, near Banias, and along the southeastern shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, at Samra-Tel al-Qasir, all in territory earmarked for Israel by the UN partition resolution. The Jordanians and Iraqis, though quiescent, firmly held the West Bank, surrounding Jewish Jerusalem on three sides and within a short tank-drive of Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean. More important, the Egyptians still held the Gaza Strip and the Faluja Pocket areas of Mandatory Palestine. They had established a continuous chain of fortified positions between Auja al-Hafir and Bir Asluj, just south of Beersheba, which effectively left the central and southern Negev under their thumb and Beersheba itself under potential threat.

Israel, meanwhile, remained burdened by the crippling weight of mobilization: half its adult males were under arms, away from their families, offices, farms, and plants, and with no end in sight. The new state, ravaged by the war, needed its manpower and peace to pursue reconstruction and to absorb the masses of immigrants flooding its shores. Yoav had failed to resolve the strategic dilemma of "no war, no peace."

David Ben-Gurion was still powerfully drawn to Judea and Samaria by historical-ideological and strategic considerations,' but international diplo matic considerations dictated caution and restraint. Besides, the Jordanians had made it abundantly clear that they were out of the fight, and the Israelis still feared British military intervention should hostilities with Jordan be renewed. Zvi Ayalon, the Central Front OC, assured Ben-Gurion that it would take only "S days" to conquer the West Bank or large parts of it. But Israel's representatives at the General Assembly meeting in Paris, Abba Eban and Reuven Shiloah, weighed in firmly against.'

But the south was another matter. The UN Security Council resolution of 4 November calling on the IDF to withdraw to the positions of 14 October in the south vaguely undermined Israel's geopolitical claims. The new resolution may have been illogical-it called for Israeli withdrawal from territory awarded to Israel by the United Nations, territory that had been conquered by Egypt in defiance of the United Nations, and then recaptured by Israelbut there it was.

Israel sought to have the resolution rescinded-or, at least, superseded and neutralized. It embarked on a diplomatic offensive. In yet another letter to President Truman, Chaim Weizmann asked that Washington dissociate itself from British machinations geared to obtaining the Negev for the Arabs and reinstating territorial continuity between British bases in Egypt and Iraq.3 Truman responded that he deplored "any attempt to take [the Negev] away from Israel" and conceded that "what you have received at the hands of the world has been far less than was your due."4

But the Americans did more than just send a sympathetic letter. On 16 November, in a new resolution, the Security Council called on the Israelis and Arabs to open armistice negotiations to resolve the conflict, as Israel had long demanded. Shertok correctly assessed that it served to "blur" the significance of 4 November.5 Israel immediately embraced the new resolution-and continued to quibble and stall over the implementation of 4 November (the Egyptians, for their part, demanded the installation of an Egyptian governor in Beersheba). Israel was especially keen on maintaining the stranglehold on the Faluja Pocket, which it viewed as a major stimulus to Egyptian agreement to open armistice or even peace negotiations' (though the Egyptians insisted that they would not open armistice talks until the siege was lifted and the Faluja garrison, or at least half of it, was allowed to withdraw to Egyptian lines).

Yoav had ended with a feeling in Cairo that the Egyptian army was on the verge of annihilation. On ii November the Egyptian government even dismissed General al-Muwawi and replaced him with General Ahmad Fu ad Sadiq. But this was cosmetics; it could have no effect on the military issue. To avoid defeat the Egyptians needed either to withdraw completely from Palestine or to agree to peace with Israel (which might conceivably leave them in occupation of a very small part of the country). But both were unthinkable; each alternative would be seen, and broadcast, by King Farouk's internal and external enemies, and fathomed by the Egyptian public, as a national humiliation. As it was, the Egyptian army's performance was widely lambasted, if only as a means of getting at the king. At the least, Egypt wanted to emerge from the war with enough of the Negev to assure territorial continuity between the Maghreb and Mashreq ("Egypt could not be separated from other Arab states by the Jewish state," was how Mahmoud Fawzi, a senior member of the Egyptian delegation to the United Nations, put it)7 and to retain enough of Palestine to be able to argue that its army had something to show for its troubles. And it abhorred the idea of signing a peace agreement, and especially a separate peace, with Israel.

Of immediate and particular worry to the Egyptian General Staff-the public was left in the dark about the problem-was the fate of the four thousand trapped troops at Faluja: their destruction and/or surrender might be something the regime and the army command would not survive.

The Egyptians spent November and December searching frantically for a way out. Diplomatically, they pressed the British to save their army by urging the United Nations to achieve an Israeli withdrawal to the i4 October lines and by parlaying secretly with the Israelis to either stave off the expected military blow or emerge with some sort of agreement-far short of peace-that would leave major parts of Palestine in their hands. Militarily, the Egyptian General Staff frantically sought a way to save the brigade at Faluja. But the thinly stretched, ill-equipped Egyptian army could do nothing alone; and the Arab states-most relevantly Jordan-refused to cooperate.

There was a great deal of inter-Arab shadowboxing around the subject. In November, the Arab League Political Committee actually devised a "plan" whereby the Jordanians, Iraqis, and Syrians would each contribute a battalion for a relief force that would extricate "the heroes of Faluja." Alternately, the Jordanians nominally earmarked their Third Brigade to carry out the rescue effort-and even (twice) sent the "G Force" OC, Major Geoffrey Lockett, by foot, into the Pocket, to assess and coordinate a rescue operation.8 But nothing came of all this; no Arab state had the troops to spare or the will to help the Egyptians. Indeed, Abdullah was probably eager to see Farouk's complete humiliation. Thus the meeting of the Arab chiefs of staff in Cairo on 11-I2 November ended without affording the Egyptians solace or hope. Meanwhile, the Egyptians managed to infiltrate some supplies to Faluja in camel caravans.

During November, Egypt again sent out diplomatic feelers to Israel-but demanded, in exchange for nonbelligerency, all the territory south of the Majdal-Beit Jibrin-Dead Sea line (that is, the Negev and more). The Israelis brushed this aside, arguing that Egypt had lost the war and was not "entitled [to a] territorial reward."9 Then, in early December, the Egyptians informed the United Nations that they were willing to open armistice talks10-but proceeded to stall and stonewall. They demanded that Israel first comply with 4 November. They blithely told Ralph Bunche, who told Ben-Gurion, that they were "ready for peace." But they declined to enter into negotiations. All the while, their army remained in Palestine, on Israeli soil; occasionally, they attacked Israeli positions. "We will not stand for foreign armies [remaining on our territory, armies] with whom we have no peace and that represent a danger to our existence and security," Ben-Gurion told Bunche in early December." Notice had been served.

Since the 193os, a deep pessimism underlay Ben-Gurion's attitude toward the Arab world. Despite King 'Abdullah's real interest in peace and the (dubious) Egyptian overtures, Ben-Gurion, like many Israelis, was not hopeful, at least in the short and medium terms. Even signing a formal peace agreement with an Arab state, he feared, might not have a lasting or broader significance. "One must look not at decisions and documents but at the historical reality. What is our reality: The Arab peoples were beaten by us. Will they forget this quickly? 700,000 people beat 30 million. Will they forget this humiliation? One must assume they have feelings of honor.... Is there any assurance that they will not want revenge?"" he asked. And the Arab states continue to reject the idea and reality of a Jewish state in their midst, he could have added.

Ben-Gurion believed that only the successful application of force would change the status quo and perhaps jolt the Arab states toward acceptance of Israel, if not actual peace-making. By mid-December he felt that the time was ripe. "In a few days," he told the Cabinet, "we will try to end our conflict with Egypt by expelling them from the Negev." It depended on good weather. The only objection was raised by Bentov, from Mapam, who worried about the fate of the ",oo,ooo" Arabs he said lived in the area Ben-Gurion proposed to conquer. 13