יומנים > יומן - מלא 28/09/1948

Tuesday, September 28, 1948

[Yosef] Karkovy: ETZEL is issuing daily incitement posters (instead of a radio broadcast). There's no response. This is a public matter, but it also affects the army. He asks whether it isn't desirable to revive some sort of "Yishuv loyalists"? - Not desirable. That's an underground of sorts. It's also doubtful that renewing the war of the walls [an earlier clash between the Yishuv leadership and the secessionists (ETZEL and LEHI), which took the form of public posters on walls; the clash coincided with the Yishuv's struggle against the British] is desirable.

       He asks whether to continue having the Cultural Division send out the parties' literature. - If they stop, the parties will send [material] directly to soldiers and this will create chaos. Better to maintain the current system.

       There's the question of newspaper distribution: until now it's customarily been in line with the distribution in the Yishuv, by consensus: Davar 24 thousand, Haaretz 18, Haboker 8, Al Hamishmar 8, Hatzofeh 4, Hamashkif 4. In total they send 8,000 newspapers to the army daily.

       - Ya'akov [Dori]: brought proposals for the ranking of air [force] officers. I didn't like the terms [i.e., terminology]. But I decided not to intervene.

       The ranking of garrison personnel [?]:

       The country is divided into eight districts: Emek HaYarden and the Upper Galilee - a district; the central valley, from Bet She'an to Nahalal - a district; Haifa to Lebanon - a district; Shomron (from Tantura to the Yarkon) - a district; Petah Tikva and Gush Dan (up to Musrara River), the city of Tel Aviv - Jaffa and Holon (including Ramle) - a district; Jerusalem up to Sha'ar HaGai - a district; Rishon LeZion and its neighbors up to and not including Rehovot - a district; Rehovot to the Negev - a district; the Negev, that's 10! Wrong: Rishon LeZion and Rehovot [are] one district, Petah Tikva and Tel Aviv one district.

       The district commanders: Bentz Bernstein [Ben-Tzion Inbar] (north), Yehezkal NP [no party] Panet (the valley), Ya'akov Lublini [sp.] Mapai (Haifa), Binyamin Goldstein NP (Shomron), Meir Sharvit NP (Tel Aviv), Levy Yitzhak [sp.] Mapai (Jerusalem), Emanuel Orlansky [Nishri] Mapai (south), Israel Libertovski Mapam (Negev) - in the Negev there are two small garrison battalions.

       Deputy front commanders [for area security, garrison actions]: North - Ze'ev Glazer (HaShomer HaTza'ir), in the Central [Tichon Front] - none, in the Center [Merkaz] - Mishal [Shacham], in the South - Avraham Negev (Mapam).

       In the staff of the front[s]: operations officers, intelligence [officers], signal [officers], services (medical, transport, and the like) - no logistics.

       - [A meeting of] the government's elections committee at the Kirya [government compound].

       - In the evening Ben-David from New York, a nutrition expert, came to see me. The Yishuv spends P£ 50 million on food per year. [We] need to ensure quality food imports, suitable production, oversight over food in the market, reserves, incorporating the army's needs into the Yishuv's needs, educating housewives on the quality of food. Towards this end a special ministry for food needs to be set up in the government. He promised me a memorandum on the functions of the ministry, its modes of operation, composition, and budget.