Leon Uris (9 page)

The two men seemed to find their times together a welcome respite from their burdens of office. Haj Ibrahim was constantly disarmed by the coolness of the Jew, who he felt was half Bedouin anyhow. He respected Gideon. He respected the way he handled a horse and spoke Arabic. He respected a fairness in Gideon that he was not able to practice himself. What he liked most about talking with Gideon was a new aspect of his life: an ability to speak to another person about his own hidden thoughts. Haj Ibrahim was an inner man of a people long conditioned never to speak inner feelings. His situation was even more lonely, for a muktar must never let anyone know his thoughts. A structure of silence was the rule of life. Public utterances, even to a friend or relative, were always based on what was expected to be said. No one spoke of personal longings, secret ambitions, fears.

With Gideon it was different. It was not so much like speaking to a Jew. It was more like speaking to a flowing stream or the leaves of a tree fluttering in the wind or to an animal in the fields, an abstract way of letting the tongue go a bit wild and not guarding every word. It was delightful. He and Gideon could argue loudly and insult one another and realize they didn’t have to get angry with each other because of it. When Gideon was gone for long periods Ibrahim would send a messenger to Shemesh for an urgent meeting over an imagined complaint.

The afternoon drifted away at the stream. Haj Ibrahim took a swig of wine, placed the bottle back into the pool to cool, opened a tin, and unwrapped a small stick of hashish.

‘Just a little for me,’ Gideon said. ‘I have to argue with bureaucrats later.’

‘Why don’t the Jews enjoy hashish?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘We offer to sell ... but ... no one buys it. You enjoy it. Do they know you enjoy it?’

‘Not really. At least they don’t want to believe it. They accept the fact I’m a creature of the desert. They tolerate my Bedouin side,’ Gideon said.

Gideon took a long draw on the little pipe, emitted an ‘ahhh,’ and lay back on the ground. ‘We should be proud. The valley stayed peaceful during the riots.’

‘Who had a choice?’ Ibrahim said. ‘Your hand controls the valve on our water.’

‘Suppose we didn’t have the water arrangement. Would you have encouraged your people to riot?’

‘During the summer heat my people become frazzled. They worry about the autumn harvest. They are drained. They are pent up. They must explode. Nothing directs their frustration like Islam. Hatred is holy in this part of the world. It is also eternal. If they become inflamed, I am but a muktar. I cannot stand against a tide. You see, Gideon, that is why you are fooling yourselves. You do not know how to deal with us. For years, decades, we may seem to be at peace with you, but always in the back of our minds we keep up the hope of vengeance. No dispute is ever really settled in our world. The Jews give us a special reason to continue warring.’

‘Do we deal with the Arabs by thinking like Arabs ourselves?’ Gideon mused.

‘That is the catch. You cannot think like an Arab. You, personally, maybe. But not your people. I give you an example. There is a clause in our water agreement we did not ask for. It says the agreement can be terminated only if it were proved that someone from Tabah committed a crime against you.’

‘But suppose the Mufti’s men did it. Should that be a reason to cut your water off? We don’t believe in punishing an entire village for something you did not do.’

‘Aha!’ Ibrahim said. ‘That proves you are weak and that will be your downfall. You are crazy to extend us a mercy that you will never receive in return.’

‘The Jews have asked for mercy a million times in a hundred lands. How can we now deny mercy to others who ask it from us?’

‘Because this is not a land of mercy. Magnanimity has no part in our world. Sooner or later you will have to play politics, make alliances, secret agreements, arm one tribe against another. You will start thinking more and more like us. Jewish ideals will not work here. You Jews have come in and destroyed a system of order we created out of the desert. Perhaps the bazaar looks disorganized to you, but it works for us. Perhaps Islam looks fanatical to you, but it provides us with the means to survive the harshness of this life and prepare us for a better life hereafter.’

‘It need not be that life under Islam is meaningless on this earth and that you are only here for the purpose of waiting to die. Could it be, Haj Ibrahim, you use Islam as an excuse for your failures, an excuse to quietly accept tyranny, an excuse for not using sweat and ingenuity to make something out of this land.’

‘Come now, Gideon. What will happen when my poor people learn to read and write. They will begin to want things impossible for them to have. You get all the money you want from the world Jews. What will Fawzi Kabir give us without making a deal for himself? No, Gideon, no. The Jews are breaking down a way of life we are conditioned to. Don’t you see ... every time the outsider comes here he brings with him ways we cannot cope with.’

‘That’s the point, Ibrahim. Islam cannot hide from the world any longer. With the Jews here, we can give you a window to a world you can’t avoid.’

Ibrahim shook his head. ‘It has always been trouble when outsiders come here and tell us how to live. First the Crusaders, then the Turks, then the British, then the French ... everyone telling us our ways are no good and we must change.’

‘You’re wrong about one thing. The Jews belong here. We come from the same father. We are both sons of Abraham. There must be a place in our father’s house for us. One small room is all we ask.’

‘Look at the color of your eyes, Gideon. You are a stranger from a strange place.’

There have always been Jews and Arabs in Palestine and there always will be. We got our blue eyes wandering in a hostile world, and some of us need to come home.’

‘And we are being asked to pay for the crimes of the Christians against you,’ Ibrahim said.

‘Pay? It’s not your land, Ibrahim. You’ve given up on it long ago. You’ve neither fought for it, nor worked for it, nor ever called it a country of its own.’

‘You are trying to create a Palestine in your own image. You are pushing us into a world we do not know. We must have something we understand, something we can contend with. You are confusing us,’ Ibrahim said.

‘Why don’t you make a small start, like sending some of your children to our clinic? They don’t have to die of the stomach or chest pains and they don’t have to go through life blind from trichoma.’

For the first time Ibrahim became annoyed and restless to end their meeting. ‘It is Allah’s will that the weak among us be weeded out.’ He walked to where his horse grazed and took its reins. Gideon stood and sighed.

‘We have a strong new generator in the kibbutz—’

‘No,’ Ibrahim interrupted, ‘we do not want your electricity.’

‘What I had in mind was running a single wire over to your café. In that way, a radio can be installed.’

‘Oh, Gideon, you know how to tempt me. A radio ... you know very well that it would make me only slightly less great than the Prophet in the eyes of the people.’

A radio, Ibrahim pondered. Gideon was slowly but readily building up an account of favors. Surely he would call in those favors. That is the way the world worked—but a radio!

‘I accept,’ Ibrahim said.

‘One more thing. I am taking a wife next week after the Sabbath. Will you come with your muktars and sheiks?’ Gideon asked.

Ibrahim got on his horse. He shook his head. ‘No, it is not a good thing. My people will see men and women dancing together, eating together. It is not a good thing.’

They galloped side by side to the kibbutz gate. The sentry spotted them and opened up. Ibrahim rode through, then turned. ‘I shall come myself,’ he called, ‘because you are my friend.’

A
CLASSIC COMMITMENT OF
aristocratic and wealthy German mercantile families had always been to send their third or fourth sons overseas. Large, wealthy, and influential German settlements were everywhere. The Germans had become particularly visible in Central and South America.

There had been an important German presence in the country beginning with the Teutonic Order, which had fought in the Crusades. In the mid-1880s the various factions in the crammed Old City of Jerusalem began to establish neighborhoods beyond the walls.

The first of these were the Jews, whose neighborhoods were built like stockades as a defense against Bedouin marauders. Connected apartments formed an outer wall with grilled windows. Entrance was gained through an iron gate, which was closed at sundown. A synagogue, school, clinic, and communal bakeries were built around a central courtyard.

The Germans moved beyond the Old City to construct an orphanage for Syrian children. This was followed by a lepers’ hospital and school for Arab girls.

In 1878, the German Templers, a vague sect, founded the German Colony southwest of the Old City. In contrast to the fortresslike Jewish neighborhoods, the German Colony had lovely individual houses on broad, tree-lined streets.

On a key ridge where the Mount of Olives joined Mount Scopus, the Germans built a landmark complex, the Augusta Victoria Hospital. In the Old City the German Lutheran Church of the Redeemer was constructed on ground they could acquire closest to the Holy Sepulcher, the site of Calvary and the tomb of Jesus. German presence in Jerusalem was magnified by a visit of Kaiser Wilhelm at the turn of the century amid dazzling pageantry. The Kaiser dedicated land purchased by German Catholics for a future Benedictine abbey on the traditional site of Mary’s death on Mount Zion.

German importance peaked before and during the First World War as allies of the Turks. The Augusta Victoria complex became their military headquarters and the city was flooded with German military men and engineers to build up Turkish defense capabilities.

For generations the ancestors of Count Ludwig von Bockmann had sent a younger son to Jerusalem to continue the traditional German presence. Young Gustav Bockmann had survived as a U-boat officer during the First World War and afterward took up the family responsibilities in Jerusalem. He resided in a gardened villa, one of the handsomest homes in the German Colony.

In the mid-1920s Bockmann was approached by German Intelligence to establish a small cover unit to spy on the British Mandate and coordinate with pro-German elements in surrounding Arab countries. Using a variety of import-export and trading companies and a German bank as cover, Gustav Bockmann proved adept at his assignment. On the surface, Bockmann was a respected businessman and pillar of the religious community through the Templers.

When Adolf Hitler seized power in the early 1930s, Bockmann made the transition to the Nazis with ease. Within a year of Hitler’s ascent it was obvious that an all-out offensive against the Jews was under way in Germany. By 1934 and 1935 thousands of German Jews were fleeing the fatherland. Many of them found their way to Palestine.

This new wave of immigration set off a violent reaction by the Arabs, led once again by the Mufti of Jerusalem.

Haj Amin al Heusseini had gotten off free for perpetrating the riots and massacres of 1929 and entered the new decade as a rising star in the Islamic world. After organizing a showy Moslem conference in Jerusalem, he journeyed to India, Iran and Afghanistan, preaching a gospel of Jew hating.

Because the British had been timid with him, the Mufti now denounced them openly. Wherever anti-British sentiment was strong he picked up support. Throughout the entire Arab world, leaders were quick to join the swelling chorus of anti-Zionist, anti-British rabble-rousing. Inside Palestine nearly every pulpit in every mosque was turned into an anti-Jewish platform.

All of this was music to Gustav Bockmann’s ears. Anything against the Jews was now part of the natural order of Nazi Germany. Anything that would cause problems for the British was also in keeping with Germany’s ambitions. Bockmann carefully befriended and romanced the Mufti as a friend who was fighting mutual enemies.

A key source of the Mufti’s moneys was his control of the Office of the Waqf, which administered religious funds. Although no new mosques bore the Mufti’s name on their cornerstones, the Waqf treasury was kept anemic by illegal arms purchases and personal luxuries. A coalition of ‘moderate’ Arab families surfaced against the Mufti and demanded an accounting of Waqf expenditures. It became apparent to Haj Amin al Heusseini that an outside bankroller, arms supplier, and political ally was needed. The German Colony of Jerusalem was bound to produce it.

Late in 1935 Gustav Bockmann was called to Berlin for a secret conference to help assess Germany’s position in the Arab world and formulate long-range plans to undermine British- and French-controlled countries.

Bockmann left Palestine, promoting the rising figure in the Moslem world, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, whose enemies were Germany’s enemies. He returned from Germany jubilant.

The Mufti’s villa stood on the northern road out of the city toward Ramallah. Bockmann was always rigidly German; a smile, so difficult to come by, was rare. Nevertheless, one was there as he was led to a splendid veranda overlooking the Mufti’s orchards. The two men exchanged amenities, then settled down to the report.

‘Your Eminence,’ Bockmann started, ‘the meeting was an outstanding success. Der Führer himself attended. I was given unlimited time with him.’

Haj Amin nodded pleasantly.

‘What we now realize,’ Bockmann continued, ‘is the extent of support Germany has throughout the Arab world. We have well-placed friends in Damascus and Baghdad and we have made great inroads into the Egyptian officer corps.’

Sympathy for the Nazis was fine as far as it went, Haj Amin thought, but any other pro-German Arab could become a potential rival of his. He continued listening with little comment.

‘Let me assure you that no Arab leader has caught the attention and imagination of Hitler as strongly as yourself. He is most impressed by your unceasing war on the Jews. He also clearly understands your unique value as a Moslem religious leader.’