Impressions from Israel

(Stephen D. Lerner '68, executive editor of the CRIMSON, is one of a number of Harvard students who, immediately after final examinations in June, went to Israel to provide help. The following report, written from Tel Aviv June24, states his impressions of the Arab-Israeli conflict.)

War is not only the agent of destruction, it is also the precursor of change. With the erasure of the Arab military machine, Israel has indelibly redrawn the political map of the Middle East. Until the Arabs, Russians, and the United Nations grasp this reality, a peacful settlement in the Middle East will remain illusory.

Although one could wish that the authority of the United Nations were indeed a reality, from Tel Aviv the convolutions of the General Assembly look like a bad farce which suffers from delusions of grandeur. It seems fantastic that the United Nations can first ignite a house-fire by withdrawing the only peace-keeping force in the area, and then proclaim itself the only fire-engine on the block when the flames threaten the world community.

"Israeli Empire"

The Israelis have won a costly advantage, and they don't plan to relinquish it without a whimper as they have in the past. Without a doubt, the Old City of Jerusalem will remain in Israeli hands the other territories of the new "Israeli Empire" will be subject to negotiations. In addition to Jerusalem, the Israelis will require international guarantees -- with a strong commitment from the U.S.-- for the right of free passage not only through the Straits of Tiran but also through the locks of Suez. The Israelis undoubtedly will seek either official recognition from the Arab states or de facto recognition in the form of peace treaties before there are any major retreats from Sinai, Gaza, the Syrian Heights, and the West Bank of the Jordan. Because of her military victories the real initiative remains with Israel: she will decide whether to play humble or hard.

Israel has changed. No longer are the Israelis an unorganized horde of European refugees who hope that the world won't notice if they eke out a meager living on a few square miles of sand somewhere in the Middle East. Ben Gurion successfully described the process of assimilating the diverse Jewish populations which came to live in Israel when he said, "It's not like a melting pot, it's more like a pressure-cooker." Visiting Israel, one can not help but experience the feeling of excitement and confidence which fills its streets today.

The order generation which still remembers the ghettos and prison camps of Europe is quickly being displaced by a new breed-- the "Sabras." Sabra is a particularly apt description of the native Israeli because literally translated it means "fruit of the cactus"-- tough on the outside but tender on the inside. The Sabras are not as worried about world opinion as their fathers were; they have recognized (and rightly so) that their country can not depend on allies for its defense. Their experience has taught them the Machiavellian maxim that guarantees mean very little when the cannons speak. They are building a political place for Israel in the Middle East in the same manner in which their fathers worked a garden out of the desert.

No Second Class Nation

For years the older generations of Israelis who hold positions of power, have tacitly accepted the fact that Israel was a second class nation. Bombarded by the neighbors, continually harrassed by Arab terrorists, Israel remains the only nation whose shipping is not permitted to pass through the Suez. Today, one gets the sense that the Sabras are no longer willing to submit to these conditions, and that they plan to translate their newly gained position of strength into bargaining power.

Any move by Eshkol's government towards an acceptance of a U.N. resolution which would take the Israelis back to their status ante bellum would be greeted with a great deal of unpopularity -- something the ancient regime can ill afford at this point.

One of the many lessons which must be drawn from an analysis of the recent conflict in the Middle East is that many of the smaller countries in the hot spots around the world will be increasingly left to fend for themselves when the Big Powers line up on either side of an issue. Although the battels may be fought with weapons supplied by the Super-nations, the ultimate outcome of the struggle will depend on the success or failure of the smaller countries involved in a limited war.

It is horrifying to speculate what would have happened had Israel been over-run by Arab forces at the outbreak of hostilities. Not only would the blood-shed have surpassed anything in recent history, but we doubtless would have heared very little from the U.N. England and the United States would have avoided involvement for fear of further escalation, just as Russia has failed to give the Arab nations the support which they expected. With the greater powers neutralized, the pawns have become decisive in the chess game of world politics.

* * *

This has been my first war--the first with which I could really identify. The Second World War was over before I was born, I can only remember collecting baseball cards during the Korean affair, and I've totally disowned the Vietnamese debacle--so in emotional terms this has been my first war.

Liquidation of Jews

But what was special about this war; why choose this crisis when crises are cheap. As a Jew I naturally wanted to be in Israel when the very survival of the state was in the balance. In contrast to Vietnam, the crisis in the Middle East was not over some vague Domino Theory nor was it the universal anti-Communist crusade. After listening to Nasser's broadcasts it all seemed very simple: the Arab nations had formed a coalition and were openly plotting the liquidation of the Jews. "Throw the Jews into the sea" was one of their more moderate proposals for a final solution to the "Israeli problem." Thousands if Jews all over the world reacted to this war in the same way that an earlier generation of idealists had reacted to the Spanish Civil War. Fortunately, the parallel ends there.

On Sunday, June 4, Israel stood alone, surrounded by the largest Arab military build-up ever amassed on her borders. Israel amazed the world with the speed and ferocity of her attack. Vastly outnumbered and not nearly as well equipped as their Arab neighbors, the Israelis (without help from either Britain or France as they had received in the 1956 campaign) chased the bulk of Nasser's forces out of Sinai, recaptured Old Jerusalem and the lands West of the Jordan River, and drove to the suburbs of Damascus.

The Israeli Defense Army is an extension of the Israeli personality--aggressive, intelligent, and disorderly. That it is aggressive is now beyond despute: operating with no margin for error, the Israelis have to be aggressive in order to survive. One mistake and the country could be over whelmed in a matter of hours. Perhaps more than any other Army of the world, the Israeli Army depends upon the intelligence and initiative of the individual soldier. Even in the lower ranks, I was surprised to find polyglots who responded intelligently to the questions posed by reporters in a numfber of different languages. One of the reasons that the Israelis were able to rout the Egyptians so quickly was that many of the Egyptian felcheens simply were not prepared for the high level of technology which their Russian arms required.

National Mobilization

The disorderly aspect of the Israeli Defense Army is largely a result of the fact that when the Israelis go to war they mobilize practically the entire population. Soldiers in civilian shoes and wearing a wild assortment of beach hats ride to the front in milk wagons, garbage trucks, and taxis, many of them have left their shops and farms only hours before to meet at pre-arranged checkpoints. The Arabs have also been singularly impressed with the disorderly advance of the Israeli forces: "Those Jews don't attack according to the book." an Egyptian officer complained to a Syrian after they had both been taken prisoner by the Israelis in '56.

Many Israelis think it is high time the Defense Army (regardless of what images it might evoke) and indeed it would be more appropriate. Aside from a standing army of some 50,000 troops, the Israelis depend on their Reservists who have had two years of active military duty and one month of training a year thereafter. But if the bulk of the Israeli army is made up of Reservists, there can be no doubt that much of their success must be attributed to a resourceful officers corps which at all times has detailed plans for the lightning destruction of Arab forces. Not only have the officers made meticulous calculations of what is required for the defense of the country, they also are always in the forefront once the campaign has been launched: in the Israeli Army an officer never tells his troops to advance, he always commands them to follow him.

Within a few days it became painfully apparent to Arab leaders that they couldn't hide the fact of their military defeat from their people forever. One of the worst things that can happen to a leader in the Arab nations is to lose face with the people. Some excuse had to be found for the defeat of countries many times the size of Israel; the truth would have meant political suicide. And so in an telephone conversation between Nasser and King Hussein which was intercepted by Israeli Intelligence, Nasser suggested that the Arab nations tell their people that they had lost the war because Britain and the U.S. had given Israel air support. Nothing could have been further from the truth; the Israelis had been summarily dropped by their Western allies when the war threatened to escalate. If the Arabs were to look for an excuse they would have to find it elsewhere.

Economically, the Israelis could not afford a long war because so much of their manpower was mobilized. But if the war was short it was nonetheless more vicious than the Sinai campaign of 1956. The few roads which cross the Sinai desert are lined with burnt-out trucks and tanks, while the Mitla Pass (a strategic pass through the mountains of Western Sinai near the Suez Canal) appears to be an enormous junk-heap of scrap metal. Although some of the damage to the seven Egyptian divisions stationed in the Sinai came from three Israeli armer divisions, most of it was the work of the superb Israeli Air Force which dominated the skies after catching some 450 assorted planes (most of them on the ground) in the first tow days of fighting. Sharm el Sheikh fell to Israeli paratroopers and marines almost without a shot being fired; by then the Egyptians had realized their indefensible position and were trying to get back across the canal before the bulk of the Israeli forces arrived.

After the war was only 60 hours old, Israeli troops were in sight of the canal. In their sweep across the desert they bypassed some twenty to thirty thousand Egyptian soldiers who are even now continuing to stumble back toward the Suez. Soon the Israelis had so many prisoners that they would only detain officers. An official Israeli statement announced that some of the retreating Egyptian soldiers had been machine-gunned by their own troops form across the canal upon their ar- rival. The statement also said that the Egyptians had cut the water pipe lines which fed from Egypt into occupied Sinai and that although it had inconvenienced the Israeli forces, it had also made it more difficult for the returning Egyptian soldiers to find water.

On June 5 the Israelis moved into the Gaza Strip (20 miles long by 5 miles wide) with the same classic pincer tactics that the Germans had used so effectively against the Russians in the Second World War. With the Palestinian Liberation Army effectively cut off from Egyptian reen-forcements, the Israelis were able to capture Gaza City before the morning of the 6th. About three quarters of the PLA is composed of Palestinian refugees who live in incredibly compact refugee camps around Gaza City. With a little work by the Egyptians, many of the 215,000 refuges could have been resettled, but Nasser has left them on the Israeli border as a potential weapon in any all-out attack on Israel. Although I was refused access to the camps themselves, an UNRWA representative, who had just come from distributing the first food and water the camps had received for days, said that there had been some 500 casualties in the camp of Jabalia alone. An Israel officer in Gaza City admitted that no Israeli troops had dared venture into the compounds because many of the refugees were still armed.

Walking through the streets of Gaza City, I could still hear occasional small arms firing a few blocks away; periodic explosions indicated Israeli efforts to dislodge snipers. Most local residents felt that the Israeli soldiers had been "proper" in their treatment of Gaza citizens--more "proper" than they had been in '56 when houses had been searched one by one and citizens shot in the streets when they refused to line up for Israeli inspections. "Nothing like that has happened yet," a Gaza lawyer said with a distinct lack of optimism. Everywhere building showed some signs of the past conflict; one of the hotels where I stopped had taken a direct hit form an Israeli dive bomber-everyone had been shaken by the ferocity of the Israeli fire-power. At almost every major intersection burnt-out tanks faced each other, frozen for immortality in their last pugnacious stance. Amusingly enough both the Israeli and the Egyptian tanks were identical--except for the markings--both "Made in U.S.A."

Psychologically, the most important Israeli victory was the block to block battle for the Old City of Jerusalem. On June 7, after having encircled the city, Israeli forces broke through the walls and started the painful "mopping up " operation which still continues today; on the same day Israelis gained control of the entire West Bank of the Jordan before King Hussein called for a cease-fire.

Jordanian soldiers are among the best trained troops in the Middle East. One Israeli reservist who had just returned from an encounter with them admitted that they were incredibly courageous. "I respect the Jordanian soldier, they are very good, perhaps even better than we are," he said.

It is interesting to note that Jordan and South Vietnam are the only two countries to which the U.S. gives direct budget aid; while pushing through Jordan, Israelis found stock piles of recoiling rifle ammunition given to the Jordanians under the Point-Four program and still bearing the "hands-clasped seal" of the U.S. It must also e remembered, however, that in Sinai the Israelis ran up against Russian tanks which are so modern that they haven't even been introduced into the Russian Army, as well as at least nine Russian Surface to Air missiles.

Syria was last on the Israli agenda. For the first three days of fighting Syrian artillery shelled border settlements in the Northern region of Israel around Tel Dan and Gonen while armor units made slight headway into Israeli territory. By the 7th, Israeli armor columns were transferred to the North and fought their way up the heavily fortified Syrian hills toward Mas'ada and Qunetra.

Israelis, with their own concentration camp experience still vividly in mind, have been extremely careful victors. As prisoners still qoured in from three different fronts, the Israelis allowed reporters to talk with whomever they wished in a detention camp south of Haifa.

Athlit is a British-built prison camp which was used to house "illegal immigrants" before the Israelis had won their independence. Today the cam holds some 3000 prisoners from Gaza, Egypt, Jordan and Syria. The 200 wounded prisoners seemed to be receiving whatever aid was available from both Israeli and Egyptian surgeons. Five of the Israeli doctors had just come from Boston where they were being trained--one of them admitted that he was not accustomed to working under such "make-shift" conditions. Even the Egyptians with multiple wounds and covered with sun blisters had been well treated beyond their wildest expectations by the Israelis.

As I stood there, 50 Syrian prisoners sat in the sun waiting to be processed. Many of them had clearly discarded their uniforms and torn their insignias from their clothing; some of those in pajamas and underwear claimed they were civiilans who had been caught in the middle of the battle--the Israeli guards chuckled and pointed to the military markings on their underwear.

First, an Israeli officer explained , everyone here is of military age. Second, he continued, we always find informants to separate the civilians from the soldiers. "We have a few Egyptian prisoners who have been here before in '56. It's like 'old home week' for some," an old Israeli officer said. "Although they may bitch," he continued , "they're damn happy to be out of the shooting and having someone look after them." A severely burned Syrian, his wounds covered with flies, was being carried by other prisoners to the hospital tent. No one seemed to notice.

In another compound, hundreds of the rank and file of the PLA pressed against the barbed-wire and called to reporters; Israeli soldiers sporting sub-machine guns converged on them and forced them back to a white, chalk line several feed from the barb wire. One of the prisoners, their spokesman, held up a piece of paper which he promised would prove that they were refugees on the U.N. payroll and not soldiers. The contract, upon closer examination, had expired on May 31, five days before the battle for Gaza; U Thant's withdrawal had left them in the hole. "We haven't been paid for our work," one of them screamed as I walked away. In the adjacent compound, Egyptian prisoners with a big red "E" painted on their pants and shirts watched skeptically. "We have to keep them separated," a guard explained to me, "otherwise they'd kill each other."

In the officers' quarters, which were kept apart from the lower ranks, an Egyptian Brigadier General (shot through the mouth and jaw) who had been stationed near El Arish