The Jerusalem Inception (36 page)

Lemmy saw a stout man stand up and wave, earning isolated applause.

The announcer said, “The Chief of Staff, General Yitzhak Rabin.”

A man of average height and build, dressed in khaki uniform and an officer’s cap, stood up and saluted. Cheering swelled up and down the boulevard, and many launched into spontaneous singing, “
Nasser sits and waits for Rabin, ai, yai, yai…
”

Barely heard over the singing, the announcer kept listing the names of civilian and military leaders on the stage. But the singing persisted, “
And he should wait ’cause Rabin’s coming, ai, yai, yai…
”

There were no speeches, which was a good thing as the sun was beating down on them with full force. But before the marching commenced, the announcer invited the chief rabbi of the IDF to recite a blessing. Lemmy stood on his toes to get a better look at the contradiction—a rabbi in uniform. At Neturay Karta, Zionism was equated with blasphemy, and those who called themselves rabbis while supporting the state were mocked. But Rabbi Shlomo Goren, now a full general, had transformed the IDF into a Jewish army, with kosher kitchens and observance of Sabbath, enabling religious soldiers to serve without compromising their faith.

The rabbi recited a prayer for the soldiers of Israel in battle and victory. Then he chanted, “
If I forget thee, Jerusalem
,
my right hand shall wither.
” Many voices joined him. “
My tongue shall stick to my palate, if I don’t remember thee, if I do not put Jerusalem ahead of my own happiness.
”

Lemmy recalled his father atop the squat boulder in view of the Old City, chanting the same mournful song, defying the Jordanian sniper, whose bullet perforated the black hat. He remembered his father’s arm, resting on his shoulders as they descended the hill. Had that gesture reflected love? No, Lemmy thought, a loving father wouldn’t rip the lapel of his coat and declare his son dead while that son was standing, very much alive, in the back of the synagogue.

A whistle sounded. An officer took the microphone and called the units to attention. The civilian crowds swelled as more people arrived. The police barricades threatened to topple over under the pressure. Lemmy kept his face forward, the flagpole at the correct angle. But his eyes moved left and right, stubbornly searching for Tanya among the sea of faces.

The band played the tune for
Jerusalem of Gold, and of bronze, and of
light, and the crowd sang, arms interlocked, thousands of Israelis swaying from side to side, until the last line.

Breaking into a fast military march, the band caused a dramatic change of mood. The spectators started clapping and waving flags. Zigelnick barked an order, Lemmy and Sanani raised the flags, and the company marched forward. Passing by the stage, they half-turned and saluted.

E
lie Weiss heard the cheering from a distance. He didn’t like crowds. Instead of attending the parade, he borrowed a vehicle from the IDF car pool and drove along the border section of West Jerusalem to inspect the progress of trench-digging. Tanya had borrowed his Citroën for the drive to the base in the Negev where Abraham’s son was apparently stationed. She insisted on telling him face to face, rather than allow the army to deliver the news.

The ultra-Orthodox volunteers surpassed Elie’s expectations. Men who spent their lives as sedentary Talmudic scholars instead worked around the clock to create a system of deep trenches and walls of sandbags along the border. Beside the military benefit, Elie was pleased to see them out of their synagogues and yeshiva halls, where anti-Zionist fever would have peaked during such perilous times, when even secular Zionists doubted the Jewish state’s chances of survival. And for good reason. Jordan’s cannons could easily decimate the civilian Jewish population of West Jerusalem. Transportation of Israeli ground forces from the south or the north, even if some units could be spared, would take too long to reach the city in time.

The trenches would save some lives, but the only way to effectively defend the Jews of West Jerusalem would be a massive attack by Israeli jets on Jordanian artillery positions in East Jerusalem—a suicidal mission because of the UN radar at Government House, connected to the Jordanian anti-aircraft guns. Brigadier General Tappuzi and his team desperately needed a solution, and Elie believed he might have it.

He parked by an abandoned building and climbed to the roof, which offered unobstructed views eastward. The Old City’s ancient walls surrounded the densely populated quarters, and the two mosques on Temple Mount resembled domes of nuclear reactors. He focused his binoculars on Government House, high on the southern ridge. Two UN sentries in khaki uniform and blue caps lounged on a bench. The guard towers at opposite ends of the compound were not manned. The massive building was made of local stone. On the roof was a storage room, which served as a base for the steel mast carrying the giant UN flag. In the rear of the compound, Antenna Hill swelled up, topped by a wall of sandbags around a concrete structure, half-sunk in the ground. A huge reflector antenna rotated on top. Behind the radar station he could see gasoline tanks—a useful feature for faking an accidental explosion.

Lowering his binoculars to just outside the fence, Elie traced the Jordanian anti-aircraft batteries along the ridge, only the tips of the barrels showing above the surrounding defenses.

A commotion in the courtyard drew his attention. A white vehicle with the UN insignia drove around to the front of the main building. The driver stepped out to open the door. General Odd Bull emerged from the front doors and got in. The gate opened, the two sentries saluted, and the vehicle drove through. Elie followed it with his binoculars. The commander of UN forces in the Middle East was driven around the Old City, disappearing from view for a few moments behind the ancient walls. He reappeared near the Mandelbaum Gate and was waved through by the Jordanian border guards. The UN observers saluted, and the Israeli soldiers did the same. Once in West Jerusalem, he drove south to the IDF command center. Elie knew that, after the parade, Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin was going to take Bull on a helicopter tour along the borders in order to refute the Arabs’ allegations that Israel was preparing to attack them.

He got down from the roof and drove off. The streets filled with civilians. Locals walked home, and a string of buses with out-of-town revelers crawled toward the city exit. He turned on the radio for the 1:00 p.m. news. The Voice of Israel reported that over two hundred thousand Israelis had attended the parade, which instigated an immediate UN resolution declaring Israel in violation of the Armistice Agreement. Egyptian President Nasser again threatened to remove UN observers and blockade the Straits of Tiran, cutting off Israel’s shipping routes to Asia and its oil supplies from Iran. A blockade, Elie knew, would mean war.

He found General Bull’s vehicle parked in front of the IDF command in West Jerusalem. He walked around it, taking a closer look. It was a Jeep Wagoneer, which resembled a tall station wagon with large tires and an elevated stance for off-road driving. The white paint seemed fresh, and the UN insignia on the doors shone as if the letters had been polished that morning.

“Is there a problem, sir?” Bull’s driver was a young, darkskinned UN sergeant, who spoke English with his native singsong Indian accent.

“To the contrary.” Elie returned his salute. “Happy Independence Day.”

I
t took an hour for the army truck to get through traffic, but Lemmy and his friends didn’t mind. They sang patriotic songs and ate candy that civilian pedestrians tossed in through the open back. The hearty adoration infused the soldiers with a sense of purpose that months of drills could never have achieved.

Once out of Jerusalem, on the open road to the Negev Desert, the excitement gave way to exhaustion. Lemmy’s mind was still racing with flashes of the day’s events. He was a real Israeli soldier, ready to defend the nation with his life, to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with his friends. His old life in Neturay Karta seemed like a distant memory. He hugged the Uzi to his chest and remembered what Zigelnick had said to them on the first day of boot camp:
Your Uzi is your new mother, father, and girlfriend!

He dozed off.

After what seemed like a few minutes, the truck’s hydraulic brakes screeched and groaned, waking everyone up. A thick cloud of desert dust penetrated through the back and filled the truck.

“You have ten minutes,” Zigelnick yelled, “to change and get ready for tonight’s drill. Come on, ladies! Ten minutes!”

Sanani cursed in Mehri, an Arabic dialect from Yemen that his parents still spoke, making Lemmy laugh. The soldiers unloaded all the gear from the truck and changed into olive field drabs.

“Hey, Gerster,” someone yelled, “you have a visitor.”

In the parking area outside the camp, Lemmy saw a gray Citroën. The driver stepped out—a woman in a sleeveless, white-cotton dress and black hair. He ran over and took Tanya in his arms.

E
lie watched the military helicopter approach from the south. The landing area near the IDF command was barely enough to clear the rotors, and the evening wind had picked up enough to challenge the pilot, who struggled to keep the craft pointing into the wind, its stubby nose downward. As soon as it landed, an aide ran to open the sliding door.

Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin stepped down, followed by UN General Odd Bull, who held his blue cap as they jogged from the helicopter, which departed immediately.

The Indian driver held the door for the UN general, and a moment later the Jeep drove off. Elie glanced at his watch, noting the time.

“Weiss!” Rabin noticed him and came over. “Impressive work with the black hats.”

“Fear is a great motivator.”

They strolled to the end of the parking area and stood by a stone wall, which offered southern views across a ravine, the border fence running north to south, and Government House on the opposite ridge.

Elie turned his back to the wind and lit a Lucky Strike.

Rabin pulled one from Elie’s pack and used his burning cigarette to light it. His fingers shook, and his eyes were bloodshot.

“Is Bull going to help?”

“A pompous old stiff.” Rabin drew deeply and held the smoke inside. It drifted from his mouth when he spoke. “I took him everywhere—the Galilee, the coastal strip, the Negev. Wherever he pointed, the pilots went. He kept looking for the attack forces we’re accused of building up along the borders, but all he saw were our thin lines of defense, manned by our regulars and some very frustrated reservists. It confirmed what we’ve been telling him. He couldn’t argue with his own eyes, but he said that the Arabs have legitimate concerns about our belligerent intentions.
Legitimate concerns!
”

“They’re lying to justify attacking us first.”

“Bull said they’re afraid of us because of Dimona. Can you imagine?
They
are afraid of
us!
”

“Nuclear bombs are a scary thing.”

“But we don’t have anything useable!”

“Not yet.”

General Rabin took another cigarette from Elie’s pack and lit it with the stub. “I need a vacation,” he said. “Maybe we’ll all end up together in a POW camp—a long vacation.”

“You don’t really believe that, right?”

“No. There won’t be any POW after an Egyptian first strike.” Rabin made a cutting gesture. “They’ll demolish our air force on the ground and own the sky. Their tanks and infantry will swarm us like
arbeh!”
He used the biblical word for the locusts God had sent to scare the Egyptians into freeing the Israelite slaves. “The Jordanians and Syrians will jump in, and we’ll be dead in twenty-four hours.”

The wind, which had calmed down for a while, suddenly lashed at them. The chief of staff shielded his cigarette. “Our only chance,” he said, “is a preemptive strike.”

“What about the UN radar?” Elie motioned at Government House across the gulch. “Won’t they notice our jets taking off?”

Rabin sucked on his cigarette as if it were oxygen. “I’m still waiting for a Mossad assessment of the radar system’s range. We know it can detect planes approaching Jerusalem. But if this radar is strong enough to track our jets over the Negev and the Mediterranean, then Bull could alert the Egyptian high command. That kills our first-strike option. Which is our only option.”

“I’m not an expert in radars,” Elie said, “but the rotating reflector on that thing is huge.”

They stood together, gazing at the radar on the hill behind Government House, smoking their cigarettes.

“Whatever the range of this thing,” Rabin finally said, “without an order from our government, there won’t be a first strike. I need Dayan to take over the defense ministry.”

Elie pulled a few photos from his pocket. They showed Moshe Dayan holding various antiques for the camera, directing uniformed IDF soldiers at an archeological dig, and sitting in his garden among valuable treasures.

“Everyone is entitled to one vice.” Rabin lit a third cigarette with the stub of his second. “Or two.”

“A thief as defense minister?”

“You’re looking for an honest politician?” Rabin sneered. “Good luck!”

“There’s a difference between dishonesty and criminality.”

The chief of staff watched the smoke drift away from his mouth. “Most of my career I’ve served under Dayan. He’s arrogant. Dishonest. A braggart. But he has steel balls. As defense minister, he’ll give the green light and save Israel. That’s all I care about right now.”

Across the gulch, on the Jordanian side, they could see the white ant that was General Bull’s Jeep. It approached Government House from the east. Elie glanced at his watch. Eleven minutes since leaving the IDF command in West Jerusalem. “Eshkol promised me the top Mossad post.”

Rabin smiled. “Why would you want such a headache?”

“To save our people from another Holocaust.”

“Get over it, Weiss. The Nazis lost the war. They failed to exterminate us. Look around. We’re still here.”