The Shield: a novel (23 page)

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You are absolutely correct, and yes, it is my government’s position.”

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Do I also correctly estimate that your government would like to change the course of history?”

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General Wilson, we want a better world for all. The world we came from was not pleasant: for more than forty years it was on the verge of a third world war and complete destruction. Each superpower supported its clients and fought wars using proxies, propping up bloody dictators and killing millions. Then the Soviets collapsed, and the vacuum was filled by Muslim religious fanatics, a resurgent Russia with imperial ambitions and Communist China with capitalistic tendencies and somewhat disruptive foreign policies. The world we came from has known no peace since the end of the current war. There was always fighting somewhere in the word, some wars were small and local and some were major. Not like the current one, but still serious with genocide on some scale happening all over the world.

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Our estimate is that a world without superpowers, with a number of strong countries, will be more peaceful than the one we left behind. People will still try to resolve their differences by force, but they will be less likely to do so if the blood they spill and the resources they squander are their own. We view the situation as the difference between two large feudal lords squabbling by inducing their vassals to attack each other. The lords have little to lose, and in the meantime people die. If there are no vassals, but instead, free democratic countries, wars between neighbors are less likely, since democracies tend not to be militarily aggressive. Do you think that Europe will go to war anytime soon after this war is done? Of course, there are no guarantees for the future, and human stupidity and hubris know no limits, but at least we want to try. We also know that only a minority of the countries existing now are democracies, but without superpowers and with better understanding of social dynamics we hope to help that number grow steadily.”

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Mr. Mizrahi, I assume that you have practical steps in mind?”

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Indeed we do, General. We think that for the good of the future world the British Empire has to be preserved, at least for a while. It will have to be dissolved eventually, but the dissolution can be beneficial for everyone – including Britain. Colonies have to gain independence. It is our belief that if they are prepared for it and are granted it instead having to fight, both Britain and the colonies will gain and there will be a potential for a more peaceful world. We are not prophets and we may be wrong, but it makes no sense to repeat the mistakes that were made in our time. Please convey this message to Mr. Churchill. We are being open about our plans for the future and expect an open and truthful British policy in return.”

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I would like to go back to the original reason for your visit,” Wilson said. “How soon can the undersupply of cannon be remedied?”

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The rate of supply dropped by only 10%,” Mizrahi said, “and if your troops had been using their tanks efficiently you wouldn’t even notice the change. The problem is that your army has only a vague idea of how to use armor. As a result, Rommel - who is an expert in armor warfare - is beating you even though you have better weapons. The theories he is using were proposed by one of your own Liddell Hart, in the 1920s. His ideas were rejected by your establishment and the same establishment has only a foggy idea of how to implement them. The Germans adopted his ideas and developed them, which is what makes Rommel so dangerous, besides his personal talent, of course.

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If we increase the supply of cannon, you will keep losing tanks at an unacceptable rate and Rommel will come close to Cairo, or even take it, as this time-line is different from ours and there is no guarantee that history will repeat and hand you a victory.”

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Actually I am one of the few military supporters of Liddell Hart. You are right though that the establishment rejected him. I assume that you have a proposal,” Wilson said.

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Yes, we have a solution. We will establish, with your written agreement, a number of bases in the Sinai where we’ll train your commanders in what we call combined arms operations. In the end, it will be much more effective than just increasing the supply of cannon.” Mizrahi leaned back in his seat and relaxed. It was up to Churchill to make a decision, though the way the options were presented gave him little choice. Mizrahi assumed that if he persuaded General Wilson, Churchill would accept the General’s recommendation.

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How long would it take you to set up a training program, assuming that we agreed?”

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We can start training the first batch of officers in slightly over two weeks. We suggest running several parallel courses for different command levels and for different specialists. It will take somewhat longer to set up the full curriculum.” Mizrahi paused
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“And it will take us a while to set up the shooting and maneuvering ranges. I think that we will have a full armor school running in about a month or so. That is, a month after the Foreign Office resolves to acquiesce to our modest requests.”

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Why not start immediately? From what I saw of your troops and equipment, you must have an advanced armor school. Why not use it now?” Wilson asked.

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There are a number of reasons,” Mizrahi paused for emphasis. “The main being that our trust in benign, or even rational, behavior on the part of the Foreign Office is extremely limited.
The other is that our facilities are not designed to accommodate the number of trainees the British army will have to send us, and we would rather not have large, or even small, numbers of British military personnel in Israel. I am not sure we could guarantee their safety. Where we came from, Britain is not a very important power, a socialist country that is kowtowing to the Arabs and the left, making our relations, and our population’s attitude, somewhat unfriendly. As far as we are concerned, you have to prove to us that you are better than the Nazis, since history tells us otherwise. There is also a security concern: we don’t want large numbers of Britons realizing that we exist. Up to this moment you are the only Briton of this time that visited Israel. As long as the training is done in the Sinai by instructors that speak English, you will be able to sell your troops a reasonable story of who we are – that is if you think that any story is needed. Since most of our instructors speak English with a foreign accent you could pass them off as Americans or Russians or a mix of the two or somebody else all together.”

Wilson seemed to accept the open, undiplomatic, show of anti-British sentiment. Sometimes it was an advantage to talk to a military man and not directly to the Prime Minister. He sipped his tea for a while saying nothing.

“If this is how you feel, why are you helping us at all?” he asked finally.

Mizrahi hesitated for a moment
. “General Wilson, you are not Jewish and have no idea what it is to be Jewish in this world. Both your country and the U.S. know about the plight of Jews under the Nazi regime. What have you done to help them? Did you try to bomb the railroads leading to the concentration camps? No, you are too busy bombing German cities. You have the resources to bomb Berlin from time to time, but not Dachau. Neither you nor the Americans, or anybody else for that matter, have even told the Nazis that genocide of Jews, Gypsies or any other group, is unacceptable. The message to the Germans is clear: do what you want - we don’t care. President Roosevelt sent a strong message when his administration refused to accept Jewish refugees. They sent them back to Germany. Britain had its opportunity in 1939. Opening Palestine to Jewish immigration would have saved Jewish lives and would have also told the Germans: ‘We care’. Instead you published and enforced the White Paper, and Jews were forced to stay in occupied Europe. Is this not being an accessory to murder?

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The only reason we are helping you is that the Germans, or rather the Nazis, are much worse. You are only an accessory to their murderous policies, and you will, in the history that we came from, become an accessory to the Arab’s attempt to murder the refugees that survive Hitler’s holocaust. Our judgment is that the world cares not a bit what happens to its Jews or any other group that is too weak to protect itself. Just remember the slaughter of Armenians by the Ottomans in the First World War
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For this reason we will help those that are least offensive, but only as long as they behave like civilized human beings.”

The General looked somewhat shaken: “Mr. Mizrahi, I appreciate your candor. I have some things to say in Britain’s defense, but maybe we should postpone this conversation. I will let you know the Prime Minister’s decision as soon as possible. Some of the issues will have to be approved by parli
ament, which will take a while. I hope you can be patient.”

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General Wilson, it has been a pleasure discussing these issues with you. We are in no hurry, please take your time. We are a democracy and we know how democracies work.” Mizrahi shook the extended hand and left on his way to London.

***

The two young men that asked to be admitted to see Yitzhak Stern looked like typical Vilna residents, except for their bearing. There was a pride in their posture that their worn clothing and three day old beards could not suppress. Stern was careful of who was admitted to see him. It was a reasonable precaution. He was the leader of the left-wing Zionist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair in Vilnius and as such was the target of the Gestapo, who considered him a Communist. Though the Germans seemed to be leaving the Jews in peace, for now, you could never know what might happen next. For this reason Yitzhak urged his followers, of whom there were several thousand, to arm themselves and leave the ghetto for the forests to join the partisans there. Not many followed his advice. Obtaining firearms was next to impossible in a community that never favored armed resistance. Under the brief Soviet rule private ownership of firearms was outlawed, making guns scarce. The general hostility of the partisans didn’t help either. In the summer of 1941 there were not many partisans in the forests surrounding Vilnius. Some of them were Polish and Lithuanian units that killed Jews on sight. There were several small units of Soviet army soldiers trapped behind German lines – they sometimes accepted Jews. You had to be very lucky to meet one of the small bands of Jews hiding in the huge forest. Even then it was not safe: the Germans, Poles and Lithuanians all hunted them down.

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Who are you and why do you want to see Yitzhak?” the young man standing nonchalantly in the entrance to the inner courtyard of the house where Stern had his headquarters that day asked.

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We were sent from Palestine, by the Jewish Agency, to contact leaders in a number of communities in Lithuania. Stern is the first we are visiting.”

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Your names?”

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Yossel Lebovitz and Menachem Goldman.”

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Wait here.”

The young man was back in a couple of minutes: “Yitzhak will see you. I have to search you for weapons first.”

After the search he led the two inside the courtyard, into a narrow door and up several flights of a dark staircase. They entered an apartment filled with people, like every other space in the ghetto. They passed through several rooms before stopping in front of a door. Their guide knocked.

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Come in.” They entered the room. It was small, with a bed and a small table with four chairs. A young man with a head of wild hair sat at the table writing in a bound notebook. There was another burly young man sitting on one of the chairs.

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Please sit, I will be done in a moment.” The man with the wild hair, who they recognized as Yitzhak Stern, pointed to the vacant chairs. They sat, with their guide next to them. Yitzhak kept writing for a moment, apparently finishing a thought, then put down the pen and closed the notebook.

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Gershon tells me that you come from Palestine. How did you get here and why have you come?”

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It is a long story. Maybe it would be best if we tell it in chronological order,” Menachem, the older of the two guests smiled. “If you don’t mind - it will make more sense that way.”

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Go ahead.”

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As you know, the Yishuv has been pressuring the British for some time to lift the restrictions of the White Paper. After the recent fighting in Syria, when the Palmach gave them critical help, they started negotiating with us in earnest. It took a while, but we arrived at an agreement. I don’t know whether you can hear the BBC here, but a new White Paper was issued by the Foreign Office several weeks ago. Jews are now welcome to come to Palestine. The Germans agreed to move all the Jews under their control to Brindisi, Italy. From there British and German ships will transport them to Palestine. This is it in a nutshell.” Menachem smiled again. “Now it is up to us to convince our people to go.”

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Wait a minute. I have a number of questions. First: why would the Brits change their mind all of a sudden?”

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A number of reasons. They still have a problem with the Arabs, who despite the 1939 White Paper support Hitler and fight the Brits wherever they can. The other reason is that the Yishuv showed them that we are organized and can be of help. They realized that we can also cost them the Middle East if we rebel now. The British decided, wisely I think, that if the Yishuv is with them and is several million strong it will solve the Arab problem and be of help with the general war effort as well” Yossel, the other guest that responded.