Reluctant Dragon

MIDDLE EAST (See Cover)

Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.

--Proverbs 27:1

Between one pink dawn and another over the Moabite hills last week came The Day. It brought forth events sufficient to crowd aside the worries of tomorrow. To the Jews of Palestine this day brought a state of their own, the first in 1,878 years. To the British it brought the loss of a 10,460-square-mile base in the Mediterranean--and relief from a burden they had snatched up with imperial optimism 31 years ago. To the Arabs, it brought a tautening of determination as well as a more sober assessing of their chances for victory.

Flag Down. Shortly after sunrise on May 14, the Union Jack flapped down from its staff over Government House, on Jerusalem's Hill of Evil Counsel. Without farewells from Jew or Arab, the British Governor General, tired-looking General Sir Alan Gordon Cunningham, drove to the airport in his bullet-proof Daimler. He flew to Haifa in an R.A.F. plane. There, at 10:05 a.m., he stepped into a naval launch and was sped out to the light cruiser Euryalus in the anchorage. On the dock, a bagpiper skirled the melancholy tune of The Minstrel Boy (". . . His father's sword he has girded on, and his wild harp slung behind him . . .").

All day the Euryalus rode at anchor. Then, as midnight approached, the cruiser stood out to sea under a cone of white light from the searchlights of her destroyer escorts. Precisely at midnight (the deadline for Britain's mandate over Palestine), she passed the three-mile limit of Palestine's territorial waters. From Royal Navy headquarters atop Mount Carmel a flare shot up, arched slowly, and fell flaming among the tall dark cypresses on the mountain slope. A few British troops would remain in Palestine until August. But the British mandate had ended.

Flag Up. A few hours after Cunningham left the docks at Haifa, 400 Jews gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum under the watchful eyes of Haganah Bren-gunners. The 13 men who would rule the new Jewish state sat down at a long table on a raised dais. Over their heads were white Zionist flags bearing two pale blue stripes and a blue Star of David. The assemblage rose to sing the Zionist anthem Hatikvah--"The ancient longing will be fulfilled, to return to the land ... of our fathers . . ."

A stocky man with a halo of electric white hair, dressed in a light blue suit and tie and white shirt, fiddled nervously with his glasses and papers, looked frequently at his watch. On the dot of 4 p.m., David Ben-Gurion, first Prime Minister of the Jewish state, banged the table with his fist and began to read. As he reached the words proclaiming "the establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine, to be called Israel,"* the audience cheered and wept. In the two hours that remained before sundown, when the Jewish Sabbath would begin, Tel Aviv's jubilant people danced in the streets, paraded with blue-&-white streamers and Star of David flags, prayed in their synagogues, with tears and cheers waved off truckloads of Haganah youths headed for the frontiers. For the first time the Jews publicly disclosed the identity of the stocky, 39-year-old farmer who is the commander in chief of the Haganah. His name was like a national rallying cry: Israel Galilee.

Unhindered now by the British, the refugee ship Andria brought 360 immigrants into Haifa. Other ships brought war supplies to Tel Aviv. The new government announced its adherence to the principles of the U.N. Charter.

At 21 minutes past midnight, Palestine time, President Truman announced: "The U.S. Government recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the new state of Israel." Delegates to the U.N. General Assembly meeting at Flushing Meadow heard the news in astonishment (see INTERNATIONAL), quickly wound up their 28 days of futile talk about "the Palestine problem."

On to Jericho. The long-awaited deadline was not greeted by everyone with cheers, tears or public congratulations. At the moment when Cunningham's cruiser slipped into the Mediterranean and the White House was preparing its announcement, a short (5 ft. 4 in.), chubby man, in sweeping robes and with one loose end of his Hejaz turban flopping rakishly at his shoulder, was standing in the night air, five miles east of the Jordan. Abdullah Ibn-Hussein, King of the Hashimite Kingdom of Transjordan, was watching his Arab Legion assemble. During the day, fierce-faced, khaki-clad soldiers of Transjordan's ist Mechanized Regiment had swirled and stamped, with arms interlocked, in traditional Arab war dances. With the first glimmer of dawn on the day after Israel was born, they began to wind down the road to the Jordan Valley in tanks, armored cars and trucks, slapping at mosquitoes in the heat. They crossed the river by Allenby Bridge, moved toward Jericho. Some Legionnaires were in Palestine already. Their first operations, confined to the Arab allotment in Palestine under the U.N. partition plan, were to occupy villages north and south of Jerusalem.

Still other Arab contingents were on the move. The Legion destroyed the Jewish settlement of Kfar Etzion and four others. In southern Palestine, Egyptian troops crossed the border into the sandy wastes of the Negeb Desert to seize Jewish settlements on the road to Gaza. In northern Palestine, where Haganah was trying to secure the Galilee region, Syrian and Lebanese detachments attacked Jewish settlements. Egyptian air force planes swooped over Tel Aviv in the first strafing and bombing raids of the war.* But these Arab moves were, for the moment, token attacks with token forces. The important question in the minds of Arabs and Jews and even in the chancelleries of considerably greater states was: How far would Abdullah's Legion go?

Three Reins. The answer was important, not because Abdullah was a great ruler of a great state, but because his Arab Legion (8,000, plus 2,000-5,000 reserves) was the most effective Arab fighting force in the whole Palestine arena.

Palestine's native Arabs were panicky, almost leaderless. Outside Palestine, the Arabs were little better prepared. The nations which had brandished the scimitar most fiercely--Syria and Iraq--were obliged to keep a good many troops at home. Iraq, for instance, had hostile Kurds to worry about. Their people were outraged at the prospect of losing part of Palestine after their leaders' boasts and promises. Of the 135,000 soldiers, many of them ill-trained, in the armies of all the Arab states, perhaps 40,000 could be spared for Palestine just now. Even they had arms and supplies inadequate for a long campaign. In their need the Arab states turned for help to the little king in Amman, whose force had been built with British subsidies, arms and advice.

Would Abdullah use his Legion merely to occupy Arab-majority parts of Palestine, or would he try to crush the Zionist state? Like all Arab leaders, he had to make warlike noises and gestures. "I am an Arab king of an Arab state," said Abdullah recently, "and my army is an Arab army. I shall do as I please."

But Abdullah, sometimes impetuous and hot-tempered, was also too shrewd to think that he could do just as he pleased. Three strong reins checked hasty action: 1) the jealous rivalry of other Arab leaders; 2) his dependence on British aid; 3) the proved strength of the Israelite armies, which for the moment probably outnumbered the forces that could be brought against them. Abdullah's Legion was his only asset; and it was an asset only so long as he kept it in being, and did not wear it away against the Jews.

39th Generation. The little man with the grave manner and impish smile, courtly graces and arrogant attitudes, had waited long to become cock of the Arab walk. He was not likely to risk losing that position.

His life had been one long schooling in the devious ways of Arab rivals--and of great powers. Abdullah was born in Mecca 66 years ago, into one of the proudest families of Islam, the Hashimites, in the 39th generation in direct line from the Prophet Mohamed. He was the son of Hussein, Sherif of Mecca. From the age of eleven he grew up at the court of the Turkish tyrant Abdul Hamid in Constantinople, where he was, like other children of notables, a hostage for the good behavior of his father. There the boy Abdullah learned languages .(besides Arabic of Koranic purity, he speaks Turkish, understands French and English), military science and diplomacy. He developed a taste for Arabic poetry, skill in chess, a gourmet's taste in food.

He also learned that he could charm people. He used his charm on all who could help his ambitions (which were great even then) in the declining days of the Ottoman Empire. While he charmed the Turks, who considered him an outstanding member of Parliament, he was also active in the secret anti-Turkish societies which fostered Arab nationalism. His chief aim: to increase the power and domain of the Hashimites.

Wasteland Emirate. When the Turks sided with Germany in World War I, Abdullah and his father and brothers joined the British, led their followers in the Arab Revolt. Colonel T. E. Lawrence ("of Arabia"), chief British agent among the Arabs, thought Abdullah "too clever" and unpredictable to be the Arab leader of the rebellion, picked his brother Feisal instead.

In his Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence wrote of his first meeting with the proud princeling: "Abdullah, on a white mare, came to us softly with a bevy of richly armed slaves on foot . . . [He] jested with all comers in most easy fashion; yet, when we fell into serious talk . . . [he] chose his words, and argued shrewdly . . . Astute he certainly was, but not greatly enough to convince us always of his sincerity. His ambition was patent." Later Lawrence decided that "the leaven of insincerity worked through all the fibers of [Abdullah's] being."

At war's end, the Hashimites expected to become rulers of independent Arab lands. Then began the disappointments which account for some of Abdullah's sharp rivalries with other Arab rulers today. In Syria, with British help, Feisal sat briefly on the throne of Damascus as King. But the British and French had secretly agreed to divide up the "Arab Rectangle," the vast stretch of desert steppeland reaching from the Mediterranean to Persia. In the deal, France got Syria, and ousted Feisal. Then King Ibn Saud, whose tribesmen Abdullah has called the "Wahabite beasts," drove the Hashimites from Mecca, where they had ruled for more than eight centuries.

Whom the French cast out, the British made welcome: Feisal became King of Iraq (under British mandate); Abdullah became Emir, later King, of a Transjordan carved from the original Palestine mandate.

Abdullah settled for his crumb from the big powers' table, pondered his experiences, bided his time. His new domain embraced 34,750 square miles of once-fertile wasteland and 350,000 subjects, mostly wandering Bedouins. Abdullah's chief material resource was British money and British friendship; his country's, a brisk smuggling trade. American toothbrushes, nylons, chewing gum and cigarettes poured into his low-tariff land, disappeared across the sandy borders of neighboring higher-tariff states.

On a hill overlooking Amman, Abdullah lives with his three wives (his favorite: a young Ethiopian) and dreams of a larger kingdom. He has repeatedly and publicly (to the embarrassment of other Arab leaders) dreamed of a "Greater Syria," including Transjordan, Syria, possibly parts of Lebanon and Palestine. In the Amman bazaars they say that Abdullah talked of his dream so much that his old one-eyed cat Kutna (Fluff) would yawn and walk out of the room at the words "Greater Syria."

Abdullah's vision enraged Syrian politicians, who saw their nation's new independence and their own seats of power threatened by Abdullah. Said a Syrian cabinet minister recently: "Abdullah will proclaim himself king of the Arab part of Palestine. Then with the aid of his nephew Abdul Illah [Regent of Iraq] and Britain, he will attempt to establish a Hashimite kingdom over all the Middle East."

"No Wild Adventures." Abdullah's reins would likely pull him up short of that grand design. But few supposed that he would peaceably give up the Arab parts of Palestine. That might, indeed, fit British hopes for the Middle East: they need a secure corridor from the Mediterranean (probable outlet: Gaza) through friendly Hashimite kingdoms to the oil and bases of Iraq. As long as they hold Abdullah's purse strings, they will try to hold Abdullah to this more modest plan. Said a British official in Amman last week: "The Legion will be very prudent. We want no wild adventures." Britain's subsidy of $8,000,000 a year still continues, and the Legion's British commander, Major General John Bagot Glubb ("Glubb Pasha"), was still in Amman last week as its "administrative" head.

Most Zionists might also welcome Abdullah's occupation of Arab parts of Palestine. He has a name among Arabs of being too friendly to the Jews. In 1933--until outraged fellow Arabs forced him to renege--he leased 22 1/2 square miles of Transjordan land to the Jews. Both Abdullah and Jewish leaders, as the two dominant contenders for Palestine, knew that in the long run they would have to agree to live side by side. To mollify his Arab allies, Abdullah would have to breathe anti-Zionist fire. But he was a reluctant dragon. While he talked war, he wanted peace. Publicly, he promised the Jews local self-government in an Arab state. Jews thought that, privately, he might be willing to agree to a Jewish state with roughly the same boundaries set up by U.N.

For their part, moderate Zionists wanted to make a settlement which would let them go back to the job of building Israel, free of Arab attacks. Without outside help on a lavish scale, they could not support the present war budget of $48 million a year, or spare workers from field and factory for front-line duty.

To the Fields of Gilead? But to work out a settlement would take cooler tempers then now prevail. For one thing, both Jews and Arabs would demand proof, in fact as well as on paper, that their contending forces were too evenly matched for either to dispose quickly of the other. There would be fighting in Palestine, then perhaps a stalemate which might lead to a settlement.

Already, however, some extremists have been advising the Jews to grab what they could. Recently, rugged young recruits, impressed by the Jewish terrorists' reputation for toughness and efficiency, have swelled the fighting forces of the Irgun Zvai Leumi to about 4,000, the ranks of civilian collaborators to about 10,000. Last week, Irgun Commander Menachim Beigin said that he would stop underground activities in Israel. But he warned that his soldiers would fight for "all" of Palestine, including Transjordan, "until the Jewish flag will fly over the Tower of David in Jerusalem and Jewish peasants will work in the fields of Gilead [in Transjordan]." He warned the Israelite government not to make "further concessions" to the Arabs. Arab leaders, for their part, have not yet shown any willingness to live with the accomplished fact of a Jewish nation. Said Egypt's King Farouk last week: "I cannot and will not tolerate a Zionist state in the Middle East."

Both sides last week contained men who felt compelled to boast of tomorrow. Whatever hope there was of an understanding between Israel and the Arab states, short of years of debilitating conflict, lay in the fact that there were also some who were boasting as little as possible.

* After Jacob, grandson of Abraham, had wrestled all night with the angel at the brook Jabbok, the angel dubbed him Israel ("Prince of God"), "for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed." * Defenders forced down one plane the first day, a British-made Spitfire. Its youthful Egyptian pilot was overjoyed to find that he was not to be subjected to torture, which he had been told to expect.

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