The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership by Yehuda Avner Page A

the glow of a hurricane lamp hanging on the door of a stone ruin, hidden from enemy view, to recite the Sabbath prayers – Kabbalat Shabbat . It was a heavenly pause; Shabbat stillness suddenly seemed to reign over everything. But then, a series of dry, sluggish shots echoed across the hills and, seconds later, an angry rumble growled from Ein Karem and a shell shrieked and blasted the lower reaches of our mountainside, convulsing it into dust. A headlight briefly cut through the cypress trees at the approaches to the village, illuminating a group of Arabs with miscellaneous rifles, dressed in kaffiyehs and khakis. Elisha Linder screamed, “That’s an armored car. To the trenches! Fire!”
    We rolled, crawled, and scrambled wildly through the thistles, searching for cover, and everyone with a gun fired blindly into the night. I have no idea how long this went on for. Eventually, a command was passed from trench to trench to hold fire, and we all wondered what had happened. Was it just another skirmish, another probe, or an ignoble retreat? Nobody had an answer.
    The Sabbath silence resumed, broken only by the crunch of rushing feet, panting breath, and the winded cry of Leopold Mahler running out of the blackness into the light of the hurricane lamp, shouting, “I have news! I have news!”
    To a man, we raced back toward the flickering glow. Elisha Linder grabbed Mahler and snapped, “Well – talk. What did you find out? Is Begin rebelling? Has Ben-Gurion declared statehood? Are Arabs plundering downtown Jerusalem – what?”
    Mahler wheezed that he had heard nothing about Begin. And as for the Arabs taking over downtown Jerusalem, the opposite was the case. The Jews were in control of the whole area. And to substantiate his claim he opened his shabby coat wide and displayed a Union Jack tied around his waist. He then began pulling from his bulging pockets forgotten luxuries; triangles of Kraft cheese, Mars Bars, and Cadbury chocolate. Then he unstrapped his knapsack, and from its side pockets spilled out cans of peaches, jars of Ovaltine, and a bottle of Carmel wine.
    We watched, eyes popping, as Mahler told how he had come by his booty: it was from the abandoned officer’s mess of the British police headquarters near Zion Square. The English had evacuated the area that morning, and the Jews had simply walked in without firing a shot. Moreover, he had heard with his own ears on the radio at Café Atara that all Union Jacks across the country had been hauled down at ten that morning when the British High Commissioner, Sir Alan Cunningham, reviewed a farewell guard of honor outside the King David Hotel. Cunningham had then been flown from Atarot airport, north of Jerusalem, to Haifa, where he boarded a cruiser that was due to cross the three-mile limit into international waters at midnight, formally ending the British rule of Palestine.
    “Has Ben-Gurion declared independence, yes or no?” asked Elisha Linder, beside himself.
    Mahler took a deep breath and solemnly said, “David Ben-Gurion declared independence this afternoon in Tel Aviv. The Jewish State comes into being at midnight.”
    There was a dead silence. Even the air seemed to be holding its breath. Midnight was minutes away.
    “Oh, my God, what have we done?” cried one of the women diggers, fitfully rubbing her chin with the tips of her fingers. “What have we done? Oh, my God, what have we done?” and she burst into tears, whether in ecstasy or dismay I will never know. And then the air exploded in joyful tears and laughter. Every breast filled with exultation as we pumped hands and embraced, and roared the national anthem at the tops of our voices.
    “Hey, Mahler!” shouted Elisha cutting through the hullabaloo. “Our state – what’s its name?”
    The violinist stared back blankly. “I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask.”
    “You don’t know?”
    Mahler shook his head.
    “How about Yehuda?” suggested someone. “After all, King