1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (70 page)

At Bir Lahfan, as Allon contemplated the final push northward, a telegram from Yadin reached him and Rabin, stating: "I have learned from the [IDF] Intelligence Service and from [IAF] aerial reconnaissance that our forces have moved toward El Arish.... You are herewith ordered to halt all movement of your units without prior approval from me." A follow-up cable read: "What is happening here? Stop the advance!" And a third cable: "I repeat and emphasize that I forbid you to carry out any operation north of Abu Ageila without my permission."44

Allon boarded a plane for TO Aviv. He hoped to persuade Yadin and BenGurion to let him take El Arish. Perhaps he assumed that by the time the deliberations in Tel Aviv were ended, the Eighth and Twelfth Brigades would have taken the town.45

The meeting with Yadin, at home in bed, around midnight 29-3o December was stormy. Yadin refused to budge. Allon said that his forces could and would take El Arish and then turn eastward, attacking Rafah from the rear. Yadin demanded that the brigades return to Abu Ageila. Allon radioed his staff officers: "It's no use. Withdraw from El Arish."46

It is possible that Yadin feared that Allon's forces were too small to take and hold El Arish. More likely, he was moved by expectations of international pressure. Whatever the case, Yadin forced a withdrawal. But he agreed to allow Allon an alternative, to push from Abu Ageila toward Rafah along the international frontier, which could assure the envelopment of the Gaza Strip without taking El Arish.

Nonetheless, Allon made one last effort: the following morning he met with Ben-Gurion (and Yadin) and pleaded that they reconsider. But BenGurion, too, refused to budge. Indeed, he went one better: if the British actually deployed forces threatening the IDF, Allon was ordered to withdraw back to `Auja, across the frontier.47 As the prime minister told the Cabinet: "There is a consideration that has guided us from the start of the operation: through all the war we have been careful not to face off with the British army."48 The Israelis remained genuinely fearful of British intervention, given-as they saw things-Foreign Secretary Bevin's "irrational" anti-Israeli "bias."49

It is not altogether clear why Yadin (and Ben-Gurion) were so adamant on late 29 December and early 3o December about pulling back from El Arish; international pressure had barely been unleashed. But ongoing diplomatic moves-and premonitions of worse to come-doubtless played a key role. Following the IDF thrust across the international frontier, the Egyptians, on 28 December, had demanded the immediate convening of the Security Council to halt what they-with brazen chutzpah-called Israeli "aggression." Previously, Bunche had submitted to the council reports condemning Israel for the impasse in the Negev as resulting from its intransigence over the Faluja Pocket. Now Britain submitted a resolution calling for Israeli compliance with the resolution of 4 November, which had called for withdrawal to the 14 October line. Egyptian War Minister Muhammad Haidar had informed London that the Israelis were "now within six miles of El `Arish."S0 On 29 December the Security Council called for an "immediate ceasefire" and implementation of the 4 November resolution.

By morning 3o December, the Eighth and Twelfth Brigades were back in Abu Ageila. But by then, London was frenetic, breathing down Truman's neck. Pressed by Cairo, Britain was insistent on saving the Egyptian armyand understood that the IDF had to be prevented from completing its encirclement. The Egyptians were panic-stricken and transmitted the panic to London via the British embassy in Cairo. Egypt's leaders were "begging [Ambassador Sir Ronald Campbell] for war material." They even asked that "British aircraft, tanks and guns with British crews but with Egyptian markings" be sent to attack the Israelis.-" Campbell opined that an Egyptian defeat would lead to grave instability in Egypt and that Britain's position in the Middle East in general would be imperiled, especially if Britain rebuffed Egyptian pleas for help. The assassination of the Egyptian prime minister, Mahmud Fahmi Nuqrashi, two days earlier did not help. He was murdered by a young veterinary student and Muslim Brotherhood member, 'Abdel Meguid Ahmad Hassan, disguised as a police lieutenant, in the Ministry of Interior building in Cairo, days after he had outlawed the organization. The defeat in Palestine was one of the reasons later cited by the assassin.52

In a series of almost hysterical telegrams, Campbell strongly urged London to authorize arms shipments to Egypt and to launch limited military intervention against Israel. Campbell hoped that this would force the IDF out of Sinai or even back to "the positions they occupied in [the] Negeb on October 14th." Such action could restore Britain's position in the Middle East, he argued.-3 Britain's minister to Beirut, Houstoun Boswall, concurred.54

But Britain's willingness to help Egypt was hampered by a lack of information about the true state of affairs in Sinai; its own reconnaissance aircraft had not yet supplied clear photographs, and the Egyptians could not be trusted to tell the truth. As Bevin put it (somewhat censoriously) to Campbell on 30 December: "We cannot understand the Egyptian reports of the fighting. Public statements from Cairo represent the battles as Egyptian victories. At the same time we receive [private] appeals for help. The public here will not understand. Is it not better for the Egyptian Government to give the true facts?"55 Bevin agreed only to allow Egyptian aircraft to use Britain's Suez Canal-side bases for refueling.

But he sensed that the Egyptians were on the verge of defeat. He instructed his ambassador in Washington to "inform [the] State Department ... that if Jewish forces are in fact attacking Egyptian territory our obligations under the Anglo-Egyptian [Defense] Treaty would of course come into play. "56 And he followed this up with something still firmer: "I trust that it may be possible for the United States Government to act on the Jews as to make any military action by us on Egyptian territory unnecessary.... This can only be ensured if the Jews immediately withdraw from Egyptian territory.... In view of the aggressive use to which the Jews had put arms obtained from Soviet satellite countries we shall no longer be able to refuse to carry out British contracts to the Arab countries. "57 The cat was now among the pigeons.

Initially, the Americans were uncertain whether Israel had actually invaded Sinai or had just carried out a small "unauthorised" and "mistaken" crossing of the frontier.58 But by 3o December things were clear: Ben-Gurion was told that Truman was "deeply disturbed" by the "invasion [of] Egyptian territory." This was proof, said the State Department, of Israel's "aggressiveness" and "complete disregard" of the United Nations.59

At first, Israel denied that it had invaded Egyptian territory. But under the barrage of appeals and threats from London, Washington was propelled into action. At lunchtime on 3r December, McDonald, the US representative in Tel Aviv, was instructed to tell Israel to get out of Sinai. Shertok was summoned and told to inform Ben-Gurion and Weizmann that Britain had threatened that, unless the IDF withdrew from Sinai, London would be compelled to "take action" under the terms of the Anglo-Egyptian Defense Treaty. Washington, for its part, regarded the invasion of Sinai as "illadvised" and as jeopardizing "the peace of the Middle East." This might require "reconsideration" of America's "relations with Israel." (By the way, the United States also criticized Israel's "threatening" attitude toward Jordan.)60 As Shertok jotted down McDonald's statement, "his fingers tightened around his pen, and his face was white with tension," the American later recorded.61

McDonald then drove to Tiberias, where Ben-Gurion was holidaying, and once again read out the "statement." It was after midnight on New Year's Eve. Ben-Gurion responded that the IDF had not really invaded Egypt but had crossed the border for "tactical" reasons. In any case, it had already "received orders to return."62 The prime minister added: "I am surprised by the harsh [American] tone. Is there any need for a friendly power to approach a small and weak nation in such a tone?"63

By then Israel's troops had pulled backed. On 3o December they had withdrawn from Bir Lahfan to Abu Ageila, and the following afternoon Yadin ordered Allon to pull out of Sinai back to 'Auja by noon, i January 194-9. He was to leave scorched earth behind (destroyed airstrips, roads, and so on). Allon again flew to Tel Aviv and pleaded with Yadin and Shertok (Ben-Gurion was on holiday) to give him more time and to retain several positions just inside Sinai. Yadin and Shertok refused: they said that Israel could not go back on its word and must pull out completely-but they gave Allon another seventeen hours to complete the pullback.

By morning a January 1949, "not an Israeli hoof remained in Egypt";64 the IDF was back in Auja. But Israel was both alarmed and annoyed by the diplomatic demarche that had forced its retreat. It was being pilloried as an aggressor-and threatened with British military intervention-when it was Egypt (and its fellow Arab states) who were the aggressors, who had clearly violated the UN Charter and a UN decision by invading Palestine and attacking the State of Israel (and the British, to judge from their internal correspondence, clearly understood this);65 and all the Israelis had been doing since 1 S May 1948 was attempting to drive out the invaders. Israel failed to understand Britain's threats of intervention or to lift its arms embargo or, for that matter, America's support of these threats. This was the gist of letters sent by Shertok to McDonald and Weizmann to Truman. The Israelis invoked the right of "hot pursuit" in defense of their penetration of Sinai and decried the inequitable treatment by the Security Council and the Great Powers of the two "invasions." And, to add insult to injury, the United States and Britain were sponsoring Egypt for a Security Council seat while Israel was being denied UN membership!66

The IDF had withdrawn from Sinai. Yet the battle was nonetheless to be resolved not in the corridors of international diplomacy but in the desert sands. And this time Israel was not to be denied victory. If Britain and the United States had stymied Allon's wide, encircling sweep around the Egyptian rear, then he would go for a narrower, diplomatically less troublesome encirclement and close the trap at Rafah rather than at El Arish; the objective was the same.

Golani, Harel, and the Eighth Brigades (along with the Ninth Battalion, Negev Brigade) were assigned the conquest of Rafah; the Negev Brigade was assigned Gaza city (to be attacked after the Egyptians rushed troops from there to defend Rafah). The aim of Operation Horev, Stage Two, was to take Rafah and its surroundings and cut the road and rail links between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, isolating the expeditionary force between Rafah and Beit Hanun.

Rafah, which was to be attacked from the south and west by the Harel Brigade and by Golani from the east, was defended by an enlarged, well-dugin in Egyptian brigade, backed by batteries of twenty-five-pounders and twenty Locust tanks. The Israelis struck on the night of 3-4 January. Golani's Twelfth Battalion, setting out from Nirim, took "Cemetery Hill," an important outpost south of Rafah, but failed to take Position ioa and the nearby army camps. Meanwhile, a mix of Harel and Negev brigade battalions began their push northward from Auja-most of the route ran along the Egyptian side of the international line-and during 4-6 January took a chain of Egyptian roadside positions.

The Egyptians sent reinforcements across the Suez Canal and mounted fierce counterattacks on the forward Israeli units, and a stalemate reigned along the hilly crests southeast of Rafah, though continuous Israeli aerial and naval bombardments of the towns and positions inside the Gaza Strip, which caused heavy civilian casualties (mainly among Palestinian refugees), sorely tried Egypt's staying power. The Egyptians tried to prevent fleeing soldiers from reaching the Nile Delta area and spreading demoralization to the heartland.67 They managed to retake two key positions controlling the AujaRafah and Rafah-El Arish crossroads. However, Harel's Fourth Battalion, commanded by David Elazar, occupied an empty Egyptian position in sand dunes to the west, inside Sinai, near Sheikh Zuweid, at last cutting the El `Arish-Rafah road on the evening of 6 January. The position, reinforced on 7 January by armored cars, artillery, and two tanks from Eighth Brigade, also dominated the Rafah-El Arish railroad track. Desperate Egyptian counterattacks were repulsed, the attackers losing eight tanks and armored cars in one charge. Key to the victory was an antitank six-pounder manned by Russian-speaking Gahalniks.68 On the night of 7-8 January, Ninth Battalion scouts raided the railway line, and a mine they planted blew up a train bound for El Arish carrying hundreds of Egyptian wounded from Rafah.

But by then the Egyptians had thrown in the towel. For days, General Sadiq, OC of the expeditionary force, feeling that the trap was closing, had pressed his government to agree to a cease-fire. On S January Cairo informed the United Nations, United States, and Britain that they were ready to begin armistice negotiations if Israel ceased hostilities. Israel was informed by the United Nations the following day.69 The IDF's capture of the Sheikh Zuweid position and the sabotage of the railway tracks only reinforced Cairo's determination to halt the fighting and save its army.

Ben-Gurion was unhappy that yet again the IDF had, at the last minute, been prevented from demolishing the Egyptian army. But he viewed the Egyptian demarche to end the state of belligerency within the wider Middle Eastern context; Jordan and the other Arab states, he was sure, would follow suit.70 Moreover, he was keenly attuned to Washington-where opinion was "dangerously tense, almost hostile" to Israel and where Truman was beginning to perceive Israel as a "trouble-maker." Israel's representative in Washington strongly urged acceptance of the cease-fire.71 On 7 January Tel Aviv responded positively and ordered Allon to pull all his forces out of Egyptianheld territory by io January. The fighting was to have ended at 2:oo PM, 7 January, but went on for a few more hours as local Egyptian commanders tried, to no avail, to reopen the route to El Arish.