Return to Zion by Eric Gartman

Author:Eric Gartman [Gartman, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS019000 History / Middle East / Israel & Palestine
ISBN: 9780827612457
Publisher: The Jewish Publication Society
Published: 2015-08-26T00:00:00+00:00

Similarly, Cairo radio announced, “The Arab people is firmly resolved to wipe Israel off the map and to restore the honor of the Arabs of Palestine.”7

The mood inside the Jewish state soured. Israelis called it “the Waiting Period,” the tensest time in the country’s stormy history. Golda Meir recalled:

By the end of May, ordinary life—as we had known it in the previous months—came to an end. Each day seemed to contain double the normal number of hours, and the hours seemed endless. . . .

There were also the grim preparations that had to be kept secret; the mass parks in each city that had been consecrated for possible use as mass cemeteries; the hotels cleared of guests so that they could be turned into huge emergency first aid stations; the iron rations stockpiled against the time when the population might have to be fed from some central source; the bandages, drugs, and stretchers obtained and distributed. And, of course, above all, there were the military preparations, because even though we had by now absorbed the fact that we were entirely on our own, there wasn’t a single person in Israel, as far as I know, who had any illusions about the fact that there was no alternative whatsoever to winning the war that was being thrust upon us.

When I think back to those days, what stands out in my mind is the miraculous sense of unity and purpose that transformed us within only a week or two from a small, rather claustrophobic community, coping—and not always well—with all sorts of economic, political, and social discontents into two and a half million Jews, each and every one of whom felt personally responsible for the survival of the State of Israel and each and every one of whom knew that the enemy we faced was committed to our annihilation.8

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.