Джеймс Миченер - The Source

The situation was this. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations meeting at Lake Success in New York, had voted 33 to 13 to accept England’s decision to hand back the mandate given her by the old League of Nations, under which she had been responsible for the government of what came to be known as British Palestine. The problem of what to do now with this vital territory reverted to the United Nations, and the responsible committee had already decided that the land be divided into three parts: inland an Arab state containing mostly Arabs; along the Mediterranean a Jewish state containing mostly Jews; and in between, the internationalized city of Jerusalem to be snared by Muslims, Jews and Christians alike, since that city was holy to all three religions.

On the morning following the announcement of this decision, the Arabs in Palestine had shown the world how they intended to comply by sweeping down upon an unarmed Jewish bus, killing five and wounding seven. Of course, this was not the first disturbance on either side, but it helped ignite an undeclared Arab-Jewish war, with each combatant fighting to gain territorial advantage against the day when division came into effect and an open war could start. During their final months of custodianship the English tried honestly to maintain some kind of peace, but as the bullets increased, as Arab village and Jewish market went up in smoke, the English made it clear that they were determined to leave. On May 15, 1948, they were quitting the land, and Arabs and Jews could partition it in warfare. As a result, in the difficult months at the end of 1947 and the beginning of 1948 the English were beset with irritating problems for which they blamed the Jews; the government in London tried to maintain a façade of impartiality, but their men on the job in Palestine found themselves increasingly partial to the Arabs, and it became obvious that all day-to-day decisions attendant upon withdrawal were going to favor the Arabs and impede the Jews.

This was only natural. The average Englishman had a personal affinity for Arabs and a distrust of Jews; but more important to the dispassionate Englishman was the fact that the Jews were pathetically outnumbered—600,000 Jews against 1,300,000 Arabs in undivided Palestine, plus 36,000,000 others determined to attack from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria and Lebanon, all of whom had common boundaries with Palestine, and from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iraq, which did not. English politicians could be excused if they believed that within two weeks after May 15, 1948, the last Jew in Palestine would be pushed into the sea; it would be therefore unwise to aid these misguided people in prolonging their suicide. Wherever possible, existing fortifications, equipment and physical advantages were being handed over to the Arabs. By mid-April, 1948, the outlines of the transition were clear: The British would go; the Arabs would come; the fleets of the world would stand by in the eastern Mediterranean to rescue whatever Jews escaped the final massacres. Where the survivors were to find refuge, the U.N. would have to decide.

The raw figures facing Isidore Gottesmann were disheartening. In all of upper Galüee, which he and his group were supposed to hold, there were not more than five thousand Jews. Opposed to them were not less than a hundred thousand Arabs, with some two hundred thousand more available from the contiguous Arab countries to the north and east. For example, in the villages between Safad and Acre there were exactly thirty-four Jewish boys and girls with rifles. In Safad itself, where the first blow would probably be struck, an accurate census of Jews had been made: 1,214 Jews surrounded by an estimated 13,400 Arabs. Since Gottesmann had been trained in German gymnasia and English universities, he knew that one must not associate accurate figures and estimates; nevertheless, he had worked out the fanciful ratio of 11.1 Arabs to every Jew. It was an easy number to remember, 11.1. But even it was misleading in that it represented the Jewish strength as greater than it actually was, for the Arabs not only held every high and strategic point, so that their superior weapons could be aimed downward, point-blank at the Jewish quarter, but the 1,214 Jews who were in Safad were composed largely of elderly religious people who either refused to defend themselves or were incapable of doing so. Many were convinced that God still intended to punish Jews for unknown sins and that this time He had chosen the Arabs to do His work, as in the recent past He had chosen the Germans, and before that the Cossacks under Czmielnicki and the Spaniards under the Inquisition. The Jews of Safad were doomed to die; the Torah said so. And they would sit in their synagogues and wait for the long knives as they had waited in the past.

Gottesmann looked at his gloomy figures: Of the 1,214 Jews in Safad, only 140 are armed, and only 260 in all are capable of fighting. The real proportion as between Jewish defenders and Arab attackers, augmented by reinforcements from without, must therefore be considered to be about forty to one. Yet the capture of Safad by Jewish forces was essential to the preservation of a Jewish state or to the winning of the war that would accompany its establishment. For Safad commanded the hills, and just as it had been vital to the Crusaders in 1100 CE. as a salient protecting Tiberias and the roads to Acre, and to the Mamelukes in 1291 C.E. as a point from which to control the rest of Galilee, so now in 1948 it was again a site overlooking the jugular vein of the area. Taking into consideration the overwhelming superiority of Arab numbers, the United Nations had logically awarded Safad to the forthcoming Arab state, but if it were allowed to remain in Arab hands the viability of any Jewish nation would vanish. As the days of the mandate drew to an end, Safad became the vital target for Jews in the area, and it was held by the Arabs, II.I-to-I.

As he completed his notes he used the contemporary spelling, Safad, pronounced Sfat in one syllable to rhyme with spot . Like all the places of Galilee this fortress town had known many different names: it had originally been Sepph, then Sephet, then Safat; Crusaders had known it as Saphet, historians as Safed, the Arabs as Safad, map makers as Tsefat, and Hebrew nationalists as Zefat. In similar manner Acre had been Akka, Aecho, Ptolemais, St. Jean d’Acre of the Crusaders, and now purists were calling it Akko; but the most notable of the variations had occurred with the Sea of Galilee: at first it had been known as a sea called Chinnereth, from the resemblance of its shoreline to a harp, then Kinnereth, then Gennesaret, Galilee, Tiberias, Tverya, Tabariyyah, Tyberiadis to the Crusaders, and, to the Turks, Bahr Tubariyeh. For the English it became Lake Galilee and was to be Yam Kinneret, with the second word accented on the second syllable.

Isidore Gottesmann, satisfied that his figures on Safad were in final form, closed his folder and leaned back. He was sure that later on that evening, when Teddy Reich and his Palmach lieutenants came to review the situation, Teddy was bound to say, “We’ve got to capture Safad. Get going, Gottesmann.” The unhappy soldier smiled wryly: Everyone calls him Teddy but they call me Gottesmann. Because I look like a skinny Englishman. And because I like it that way.

He thought back upon the times when the calling of his name by some Englishman had been of critical significance: That night after we blew up the bridge inside the German border. The English major heading the underground had said in his crisp, unemotional manner, “Splendid show, Gottesmann. You’re for Antwerpen.” And that had been the difference between life and the extermination camp, for those who had not made it to Antwerp had been caught and killed. Or the night in the Belgian port when another English underground operative had called, “One more place in the lorry. Look lively, Gottesmann,” and this, too, had been the selection between living and dying, for on the following week this Antwerp ring had been penetrated by the Nazis. He also remembered the time when he had stood at attention in dirty civilian clothes as a professor announced to a motley crew, “And for the University of Norwich, Gottesmann. You did well in your papers, lad.” At graduation his German-Jewish name had been called crisply and he had moved into the British army, then into Syria and later into Italy—always at the command of British Gentiles who were generous in recognizing his merit and in granting him their approval.