יומן - מלא 01/07/1948

Thursday, July 1, 1948 [Haifa]

This morning [Bernard] van Leer - a widely accomplished Dutch Jew - came to see me. He's given us a few airplanes. Yesterday he gave us an important boat. He's building a big factory in Haifa and he's prepared to do more.

       He and I visited the airfield in Haifa - a wonderful field - although it won't do for the largest of the airplanes.

[Tel Aviv]

       - At nine I returned to Tel Aviv.

       Waiting for me here, apparently, is the obstruction posed by Yigael [Yadin] and perhaps some other[s].

       - Dr. [Ya'akov David] Wilhelm, Lampel Hotel in Tel Aviv or by Schocken, who was appointed the chief rabbi of Stockholm, replacing [Rabbi Dr. Mordecai] Ehrenpreis, came to see me. He [Wilhelm] was a member of [the bi-nationalist political movement] Ihud, one of Dr. Magnes's men. He congratulated me on winning, and was happy that I had won. He admits his mistake. He was living [in Jerusalem] on Ben-Yehuda Street, [his home] was bombed, and all his property was destroyed - and he was also happy about this. Because [now] he has even greater property - during the shelling he saw what the Jewish people are. He was hungry - and he's happy about this. His 20-year-old daughter (Yiska) was in Cyprus and smuggled weapons. Now she's in the medical service of "HaPortzim" ["The Burglars"] Battalion [the Fourth Battalion] in Sarafand. His 18-year-old son Nathan is in the Gadna, "Alumim," Masada Battlation, at Camp Schneller [in Jerusalem]. Dr. Wilhelm is leaving [to take up his appointment] with his wife and youngest son, age 16, without the two older ones. If there's any mission for the older ones - they'd be happy to accept it.

       - I summoned [Northern Front Commander] Moshe Carmel. His staff is in Mizra. He's about to transfer it to Gvat. The situation is severe, in his view. If the enemy attacks -we'll be able to suffer losses. There's no garrison force, which is why Hayish was destroyed [and this] interferes with organization. There are no additional forces. Each battalion is short roughly 300 men. There are also men in each battalion who won't risk going to battle - except for [the provision of] services, and the Personnel Department isn't providing additional men, and doesn't want to take them back.

       Qawuqji has 4000 men in the area between Malkiyya and Nazareth.

       He [Carmel] demands: 1) The establishment of guard battalions: 2 in the Upper Galilee, 3 in the Lower Galilee, including the Valley (from Ginossar to Sha'ar HaAmakim), 3 for Carmeli, recruits [aged] 36 and above. 2) Additional new recruits for Hayish battalions. 3) Organization of the command. Uri Yafeh and his deputy Pini Epstein [of the Oded Brigade] are living in a state of panic, and neither will succeed. As for Nahum Spiegel [Golan], who's now Mishal [Shacham]'s deputy, he doesn't know if he'll succeed or not. Mishal, in his view, won't succeed. [Haim] Laskov is good. Uri [Yafeh] only has 1,200 men. Moshe sent a battalion under Maxie Kahan [from Carmeli] to the Upper Galilee. 4) The front's staff needs to be organized. It requires operations officers, a planning officer. It has an administrative officer - "Bentz" [Ben-Tzion] Bernstein [Inbar]. It has a signals and munitions officer. He'd like to have Meir'ke Davidzon [of the Givati Brigade] as an operations officer (Lehrer [Zadok] suggested this to him).

       Human material for garrison force battalions cannot be found in the Galilee. They need to be brought from Tel Aviv and Haifa. They won't fight as battalions, but rather will hold the positions that Hayish has captured. Zvi Herman is also acceptable as an operations officer (currently he's with Alexandroni - as planning officer).

       - [Moshe] Podhotzur [sp.] and [Avraham] Vrobel [sp.] (of the Safed Workers' Council) came from Safed to see me. The situation in Safed is troubling - more so than before liberation. There are no forces in Safed. Syrian, Lebanese, and local Arabs are assembling nearby. Safed also needs to be strengthened economically. They want to bring immigrants and house them in Arab homes. [Minister Moshe] Shapira said they would send a few hundred immigrants. Shapira asks whether I consent to housing them in Arab homes. I see no basis to object. [Giora] Josephtal promised Podhotzur 500 draft-age immigrants.

       - Letters arrived from all the members of the faction [i.e., internal resistance]: [Yigael] Yadin, Y. Galili, Eliahu Cohen [Ben-Hur], Zvi [Ayalon] - with resignations, and complaints against the existing regime. And they're all asking to have their letter presented to the government, except for Yisrael [Galili] who sent his letter directly to the government members, although he wrote "personal and confidential" at the top of his letter to me.

       - In the afternoon a State Council meeting, until ten.

       - I met with David Hacohen, who returned from America yesterday. He heard that there's been a fundamental shift in [US Defense Secretary] Forrestal's outlook: He's become aware that the Arab League is a British hoax, that the Arabs are of no military significance, that the Haganah has opened his eyes, and that in the Near East only the Persians and the Turks need to be taken into consideration, and that financial support should be given to the State of Israel, and peace should be reached with Transjordan. Since the truce, the real balance of powers in the country, which was initially distorted by British propaganda, has become clear to public opinion in America, and to the Jews there.

       Internally - [Rabbi Abba Hillel] Silver and his associates feel they've been excluded from the game. Silver does not want to condemn ETZEL after the ship [Altalena] incident.

       - I summoned Yigael Yadin. I said that the four letters I'd received from him and the three Mapam members are in a sense a political rebellion against the army and a matter of incomparable severity. This could place the entire war effort, which is a life-or-death war, in jeopardy. If he insists on resigning from the Operations Department - I'll accept his resignation. But it's my duty to tell him that I view it as serious sabotage. The war will continue even without me or without him. In either case it would be sabotage. I'm not appealing to him in the name of discipline - there's no glory in mechanical discipline. I'm appealing to his sense of responsibility. His leaving undermines him personally, but that's a private matter. It undermines the hard work he's carried out over the course of six months.

       He said that he cannot respond immediately, and that he'll give me an answer tomorrow morning.