Leon Uris (10 page)

‘Can you be more specific about what Germany intends to do regarding our particular situation?’ the Mufti asked.

Bockmann cleared his throat for a long recitation. ‘The Nazis have only been in power for a few short years, but the results have been astonishing. There is a new spirit in the land, a feeling of national unity after the humiliation of the world war. Certainly in the next few years Hitler will unify the German minorities around Europe ... in Austria ... Poland ... Czechoslovakia. All Germans will be under a single Nazi banner. The feeling is very strong that the French and the British are ... how would you say ... too demure, too decadent to stop a German advance on the European continent. Certainly within the decade there will be a German physical presence in the Middle East.’

‘By war?’

‘I would think so. A short war. You are in the enviable position of getting in at the beginning to solidify your own claims.’

‘On the presumption that Germany dominates or is the influential power here,’ the Mufti said.

‘Can it be otherwise?’ Bockmann’s voice had a touch of astonishment.

‘How do you see things developing in Palestine?’

‘Act one,’ Bockmann said. ‘The British Mandate is floundering. A carefully orchestrated Arab uprising, led by yourself, could collapse the mandate. Act two. With the British gone, the Jews are naked. With your proven ability you can unite the Moslem world against them and drive them out, eradicate them. Act three. A grateful Hitler would support your claims to leadership in the Arab world.’

It was heady stuff. To do the German’s bidding, would he be trading a British tyrant for a German tyrant? No, he had a special hold. No matter what Hitler ultimately did with organized religions, he would be extremely unwise to tamper with Islam. As Hitler’s bridge to Islam, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem would be in a position of immense power.

‘By tradition,’ Haj Amin said, ‘Palestine also includes the eastern bank of the Jordan River, the so-called Emirate of Trans-Jordan. One has to consider that we are also part and parcel of the Syrian province.’

Bockmann snapped his head in a half bow. ‘Berlin looks favorably on your interpretation of the old Turkish boundaries.’

‘Dear Gustav,’ the Mufti said. ‘That is precisely what the British told Sharif Husain to get him involved against the Turks. Husain died in exile.’

Bockmann stiffened. ‘You compare the word of Adolf Hitler to that of the British Colonial Office? We keep our promises to our friends.’ He cleared his throat, this time ceremoniously. ‘I am authorized to invite you to Berlin. Secretly, of course. A treaty supporting your claims will be drawn up.’

Haj Amin arose and clasped his hands behind him and walked to the corner of the veranda, from where he could look beyond the Dead Sea depression to the hills of Trans-Jordan. ‘Abdullah,’ he said, ‘has an Arab Legion there that is British-trained, British-armed, and led by British officers. Are you sure the British will keep them still in the wake of another Arab uprising in Palestine?’

‘We feel we can organize and help direct Arab opinion to bring unprecedented pressure on the British. In no way will Abdullah be permitted to cross the Jordan River.’

‘I’m not so certain. Abdullah is very ambitious.’

‘At worst, Your Eminence, it is a risk worth taking.’

‘Let me rewrite your acts,’ the Mufti said. ‘The British Mandate will not collapse all that quickly. They are weary but not dead. They will never give up the Sinai and the Suez Canal without a German invasion. If I call for an uprising and fail before Germany goes to war ... Is that a risk worth taking? Before I even get involved in your act one, I have to eliminate this coalition of Arab families against me here in Palestine. Gustav, I do not have the resources.’

Bockmann perched himself on the wide railing close to Haj Amin. He smiled once more. ‘I did not come from Berlin empty-handed.’

The Mufti covered his delight and the conversation became head to head as though they were wary of eavesdroppers.

‘I went into your problems at great length. I explained the high costs of running your continued opposition against the Jews and British.’

That was what the Mufti wanted to hear!

‘We are prepared to cover any ... shall we say ... indiscretions in Waqf funds.’ Haj Amin nodded and Bockmann went on quickly. ‘We studied the 1929 riots. This time you will have the funds and we will supply the dealers and routes to bring in several thousand rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition as well as explosives, grenades, automatic weapons, mortars.’

A distinct look of approval emanated from Haj Amin. ‘Please go on,’ he said.

‘Such key villages as Tabah and the road it guards will not stand this time,’ Bockmann said. ‘You will also have the means to make annihilation attacks directly against Jewish settlements.’

A lone fly could be heard buzzing over the coffee cups.

‘With all due respect, Your Eminence, you are a holy man. The situation calls for bringing in a first-rate military commander capable of recruiting a strong force of volunteers from various Arab lands.’

‘Kaukji,’ Haj Amin said instantly.

‘Kaukji,’ Bockmann concurred.

The Mufti did not like it. Kaukji had been an officer in the Turkish Army during the war and had won an Iron Cross. Since the war he floated about as a mercenary. He had been involved in an abortive rebellion against the French in Syria and had fled. He turned up here, in Saudi Arabia, as an intelligence adviser, there, in Iraq in a military college. The German agents in Iraq were undoubtedly sold on Kaukji. He spoke fluent German, had a German wife and an Iron Cross. He had friends at court in Berlin. Haj Amin did not like the man personally; he was too ambitious. He fancied himself a German field marshal complete with a personalized uniform and a field marshal’s baton.

But Kaukji was on the make and Haj Amin knew it. The so-called coalition of Palestinian Arab moderates had already contacted Kaukji. A secret meeting had taken place in Baghdad called by Fawzi Effendi Kabir, the Mufti’s enemy. Kabir represented many businessmen and investors in Palestine whom Haj Amin wanted to eradicate. The Mufti also knew that Kabir had made secret investments in Jewish enterprises and wanted Palestine to retain much of its Jewish community. If he, Haj Amin, did not agree to take Kaukji, then certainly Kabir and his crowd would get him.

‘If I agree to Kaukji,’ Haj Amin said.

‘You must agree to Kaukji,’ Herr Bockmann answered.

‘I see that all of this has been carefully thought out.’

‘It has.’

‘I will agree only to a meeting with Kaukji,’ the Mufti said. ‘He is to receive his orders from me. That must be clearly understood in advance.’

‘But of course, Your Eminence. There is another matter. We want you to start sending your boys to Germany for training. Not only is military and sabotage training vital, but your people must learn government operations to be able to move into key positions.’

‘You are saying we are incapable of governing ourselves?’

‘We only wish to assist you in areas where we can be helpful.’

It was utterly clear that the price for German help would be high, damnably high.

‘We also feel,’ Bockmann finalized, ‘there is a great new value to the use of propaganda. It can be an extremely useful tool against the Jews and we are creating new techniques.’

‘Anything else?’ Haj Amin asked.

Bockmann held his arms apart to indicate he had delivered all the messages. ‘It would not be terribly wise for us to continue meeting in the open.’ He turned at the door. ‘By the way. It is no trick smuggling arms into Jerusalem, but we are concerned with a place to hide them.’

‘The Crusaders used the Al Aksa Mosque as part of their headquarters,’ Haj Amin said. There are large underground areas where they stabled their horses. These have been incorrectly described as Solomon’s stables. The arms will be safe there.’

‘Ingenious, but the British could well become aware.’

‘My dear Gustav Bockmann, the British would never profane a Moslem holy place.’

At last they managed a laugh together as the Mufti saw the German out.

B
ETWEEN THE ANCIENT
A
RAB
port city and the new Jewish city of Tel Aviv stood a wasteland of hovels peopled by downtrodden oriental Jews, Arabs, and a purgatory of mixed marriages.

In the middle of evening prayers agents of the Mufti ran into the mosques of Jaffa, on signal, screaming that the Jews were slaughtering Arabs in Tel Aviv. The timing was exquisite, with every mosque in the city receiving the libel at the same time. The short fuse that every Arab carries in his guts had been ignited with consummate ease. Enraged mobs poured into the streets. The Mufti’s operators were waiting to drum up a chant and lead them to the no-man’s-land neighborhood between the cities. It was a maddened swarm that fell on the wretched quarters of oriental Jews and slaughtered nine, grievously wounding scores more. Within hours this always smoldering rabble had been ignited into a wildfire that swept over Palestine.

A day later, Haj Amin al Heusseini declared the formation of a new Arab Higher Committee with himself at its head to direct a general strike throughout the land.

The Higher Committee’s first ‘communiqué’ was an announcement appointing the brigand Kaukji supreme commander of the Palestine rebellion. He was immediately commissioned to recruit an army outside the country to take up the sacred cause.

With the Waqf funds depleted by the Mufti’s excesses, Haj Amin looked now to the Germans for quick financial help. Herr Bockmann found his own budget overspent in the purchase of illegal arms. Money was needed at once for mercenaries to join Kaukji’s Irregulars. Haj Amin responded by dispatching special collection squads to visit wealthy Arab families to extort ‘donations’ for the ‘Strike Fund for Distressed Palestine.’ A prominent Haifa grain merchant was the first to refuse. He, his two sons, and his four guards were murdered during prayer in their family mosque.

In the countryside Mufti gangs pounced on the weaker and more isolated Arab villages. The Mufti’s terrorists took for themselves the far-fetched title Mojahedeen, the Warriors of God. Everything was looted for ‘the cause,’ from livestock to personal belongings. The Mufti demanded men from the villages to be impressed into his forces. Many were simply taken from the fields and handed weapons. They went out and sniped at British traffic, cut power lines, set up ambushes, blew bridges. After a half dozen muktars were murdered for refusing to provide ‘volunteers,’ village after village succumbed to the terror.

Although the British had beefed up their forces to some twenty thousand troops, they were quickly manipulated into a defensive battle by a ghostlike enemy. The principal British deployment consisted of a network of large police barracks, named Tegart forts after the designer, which interlaced the land. It was the same strategy used by the Crusaders with minicastles and the ancient Hebrews with fortified outposts on hills within sight of one another. During the day, the British were able to come out and patrol and launch raids, but by night they were forced to button up in the Tegarts and give the Mufti the freedom of the darkness.

As the rebellion increased in nocturnal savagery the British initiated massive but cumbersome assaults against lightly armed Arab gangs who would simply disappear into the scenery. The British assessed collective fines against known collaborators and even destroyed entire rebel villages, but they could not stem the Arab fury.

Within a few months Kaukji’s Irregulars had infiltrated into Palestine, increasing the havoc. He had recruited a malicious corps from religious fanatics, criminals, a variety of adventurers, and prisoners who were granted early release to join the ‘holy war.’ With freedom of movement throughout the night, the rebels were able to select their time and place of attack, then vanish. Rebel bands grew bolder by the week. When a Tegart fort was finally overrun, the British realized they were in deep trouble.

In one of those queer paradoxes that made the mandate take on unreal aspects, the British turned to the Jewish Agency and petitioned the Haganah for help. The Haganah had stopped the Mufti from taking a single Jewish town or kibbutz. Unwritten but understood areas of cooperation between the Haganah and the British increased, changing the status of the Jewish army from semiillegal to semilegal.

Even as the British and the Haganah assisted one another in fighting the Arabs, the two fought each other with equal bitterness on the matter of immigration. Desperation had increased among Europe’s Jews. The Haganah went heavily into the business of smuggling them into Palestine, circumventing the British quotas that had been imposed as a result of Arab pressures. Hundreds of Jews entered as tourists and pilgrims and disappeared into the kibbutzim. Hundreds more came over with false documents for a sham marriage or to join nonexistent relatives. Still others beached themselves in small boats near Jewish seaside settlements. Others walked the tortuous routes from Arab lands and made illegal entry over the borders. Jew and Englishman shook hands with the right and hit each other with the left. Likewise, the Arabs had numerous sympathizers among the British officers and civil servants. It was a Middle East muddle of the first order.

As the rebels grew bolder a nervous eye was cast on the Valley of Ayalon and the road to Jerusalem. Haj Ibrahim had refused to contribute to the strike fund or to supply men. The expected happened.

Ghassan, the sheik of one of the smaller clans in Tabah, was kidnapped as he left the home of relatives in Ramle. Ghassan quickly broke under torture and agreed to cooperate to set up a trap for Haj Ibrahim’s personal guard.

The bait was a Swedish blonde, the girlfriend of one of Kaukji’s officers. She was of a breed of international fortune hunters who eventually lit on the gold coast around Beirut. Ghassan’s story would be that he had discovered the girl and several of her girlfriends who had become stranded on the way to Cairo and were engaging in prostitution to work their passage.