With the Arabs in Jerusalem
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into Palestine, and beginning tomorrow will march on Jerusalem and on Tel Aviv. The Arab Legion will march on Tel
Aviv from the east and meet the Egyptians coming from the
south. The Syrians and Lebanese armies will attack from the
north and northwest, and march on Tel Aviv also. The Iraqi
regulars will support the Syrians and Arab Legion. You can
see"—and here Moustafa, quite excited, drew out a piece of
paper and traced the plan roughly—"how the Arabs will come
all together at one time on Tel Aviv!" He looked at me
triumphantly. "Arc you frightened now, Artour?" he said,
blowing out the candle, and thumping into bed.
In the darkness I said: "No, Moustafa, I believe you."
I lay thinking. We were sleeping in the basement wing of
Osborne House, sheltered from the fire that crisscrossed the
Valley of Hinnom.3 The shelling continued unbroken, to and
from Zion Hill, David's Tower, Jaffa Gate, and beyond. It was
marked by enormous explosions in the night. A few weeks to
push the lowly Jews into the sea and seize the rich Jewish
booty? Could 650,000 Jews defy the might of forty-five million
Arabs, the massed might of the Arab armies? We were on a
pinnacle of history this night: everywhere last-minute preparations were being made for tomorrow, the long-awaited day
when hated British rule and the hated Mandate would end;
tomorrow, when David would be smitten by the Arab Goliath.
I thought of the night I walked, rainsoaked, in New York.
It seemed as though that had taken place in another world, in
another time. I had come on this odyssey to learn, to see what
forces were at work. . . . Here, in the Holy Land, where the
Prince of Peace was born, violence spoke from every stone,
every leaf, every ancient, time-hallowed site. . . .
And thinking these thoughts, I fell asleep, deaf at last to the
bitter symphony of death played in the City of Peace.
3
It was symbolic as a valley of death. An altar once stood here to Moloch,
the god to whom infants were offered as sacrifice. The Alcadema Field of
Blood was in this valley, as well as the potter's field of ancient days, bought
with the thirty pieces of silver which Judas, in remorse, flung back at the
priests.