Jerusalem. The Biography

mind,’ replied Hussein, who agreed to place his 56,000-strong army under the Egyptian General Riyad. ‘All the Arab armies now surround Israel,’ declared the king. Israel faced war on three fronts. On 28 May, Eshkol had given a rambling radio address that only intensified Israeli anxiety. In Jerusalem, bomb shelters were dug, air-raid drills practised. The Israelis feared annihilation, another Holocaust. Eban had exhausted diplomacy and the generals, the politicians and the public had lost confidence in Eshkol. He was forced to call in Israel’s most respected soldier.
    DAYAN TAKES COMMAND
     
    On 1 June, Moshe Dayan was sworn in as defence minister and Menachem Begin also joined the new National Government as ministerwithout portfolio. Dayan, who always wore his trademark black eyepatch, was a disciple of Ben-Gurion and despised Eshkol, who privately nicknamed him Abu Jildi after a slippery one-eyed Arab bandit.
    Wingate’s pupil, chief of staff during the Suez war and now an MP, Dayan was a contradiction – an archaeologist and looter of artefacts, an avenging wielder of military might and a believer in tolerant coexistence, a vanquisher of the Arabs and a lover of Arab culture. He was ‘supremely intelligent,’ recalls his friend Shimon Peres, ‘his mind was brilliant and he never said a foolish thing’. His fellow general Ariel Sharon thought Dayan ‘would wake up with a hundred ideas. Of them ninety-five were dangerous; three more were bad; the remaining two however were brilliant.’ He ‘depised most people’, recalled Sharon, ‘and took no pains to conceal it’. His critics called him ‘a partisan and adventurer’ and Dayan once admitted to Peres, ‘Remember one thing: I am unreliable.’
    Dayan radiated the charisma of the new dashing Jew ‘not because he followed rules,’ says Peres, ‘but because he discarded them with ability and charm.’ A classmate described him as ‘a liar, a braggart, a schemer, and a prima donna and in spite of that, the object of deep admiration’. He was a loner without friends, an inscrutable showman and a priapic womanizer, which Ben-Gurion excused because Dayan was ‘cast from biblical material’ like King David – or Admiral Nelson: ‘You have to get used to it’, he told Dayan’s heartbroken wife, Ruth. ‘Great men’s private and public lives are often conducted on parallel planes that never meet.’
    As Eban reported that America did not approve military action, but nor would it move to prevent it, Dayan showed his cool grasp of strategy. He stressed that Israel had to strike the Egyptians at once while avoiding any confrontation with Jordan. His Jerusalem commander Uzi Narkiss challenged him: what if Jordan attacked Mount Scopus? ‘In that case,’ replied Dayan drily, ‘bite your lip and hold the line!’
    Nasser already believed he had won a bloodless victory but the Egyptians continued to plan their attack in Sinai. The Jordanians, backed by an Iraqi brigade, drew up Operation Tariq to encircle Jewish west Jerusalem. The Arab world, now fielding 500,000 men, 5,000 tanks and 900 planes, had never been so united. ‘Our basic aim will be the destruction of Israel,’ said Nasser. ‘Our goal’, explained President Aref of Iraq, ‘is to wipe Israel off the face of the map.’ The Israelis fielded 275,000 men, 1,100 tanks and 200 planes.
    At 7.10 a.m. on 5 June, Israeli pilots surprised and wiped out the Egyptian air force. At 8.15, Dayan ordered the Israeli Defence Forces into Sinai. In Jerusalem, General Narkiss waited nervously, fearful that the Jordanians would take the vulnerable Mount Scopus and encircle the197,000 Jews in west Jerusalem, but he was hoping that the Jordanians would make only a symbolic contribution to the Egyptian war. Just after 8 a.m., the air-raid sirens rang. The Dead Sea Scrolls were securely stored. Reservists were called up. Three times, Israel warned King Hussein, through the US State Department, the UN in Jerusalem and the British Foreign Office, that ‘Israel will not, repeat
not
, attack Jordan if Jordan maintains the quiet. But if Jordan opens hostilities, Israel will respond with all its might.’
    ‘Your Majesty, the Israeli offensive has begun in Egypt,’ King Hussein’s aide-de-camp informed him at 8.50 a.m. Telephoning headquarters, Hussein learned that Field Marshal Amer had smashed Israeli forces and was successfully counter-attacking. At 9 a.m., Hussein entered the headquarters to find that