Sheik Ayyub speaks for Palestine when he interprets the Koran’s prophecy to say that Israel’s second corruption of the land will be their attempt to retake the Temple,” Muhammed Du’ad said.
The commander of all Palestinian Authority forces faced Abu Ismael and spoke past a frown. He’d come to Damascus in the night at Abu’s urgent call.
General Nasser sat on the sofa to Abu’s right, watching with legs crossed. For the first time, they had shared the scenario of the Ark’s possible discovery, and it was playing exactly as Nasser had predicted.
“If you don’t believe that, you don’t appreciate Islam the way that the Palestinian does,” Du’ad said. “The Jews will try to retake the Haram al-Sharif—that much any half-witted Muslim knows. The only question is when. Now you tell me that they have the Ark, and you think we should wait? Their Ark will require a temple, you know that as well as I!”
“I didn’t say they have the Ark,” Abu said. “I said they seem to think they have something. It could be the Ark. And if you follow Ayyub’s interpretation of prophetic events, then you also believe that the prophet Jesus will come again and lead the Muslims against the Jews.”
“Yes, of course.”
“So then perhaps we should wait to see if this Messiah of ours will come.” It sounded absurd, referring to the Christian Jesus as Islam’s savior, but the Koran was quite plain on at least that much. All three major religions had a savior—a Messiah so to speak. It was a fact not lost on most scholars that for Islam and Christianity that savior was the same prophet, Jesus. The same man that the third religion, Judaism, had crucified. In a strange way it united Christianity and Islam, though only in theory. In practice, the Christians were uniting with Jews. He could never understand why the West seemed so eager to embrace the very people who had killed their God.
Either way all three religions claimed their savior, and in all three cases that savior would come to the Temple Mount. For the Jews, a Messiah to deliver them from Islam; for Islam, a savior to destroy the Jews; for Christians, the savior to come a second time to destroy both Jews and Islam. How had the world come to this?
Du’ad stared at Abu with dark eyes. “The prophet Jesus will emerge in his time. Until then we will make our own future. Ayyub also teaches that God has brought the Jews to Palestine so that they can be destroyed with one swipe of the sword. Does this mean we are to let them walk over us until the day we rise up and destroy them? No. If we discover that the Jews have even a thought of retaking the Temple Mount, we have no alternative but to defend it to the death. No Muslim leader in all of history has ever willingly abandoned sovereignty of a holy place. It would make them a pariah to the Arab world.”
Abu nodded. He was right, of course. And he believed that the other Arab states would agree without argument.
“Well, Colonel, we did not bring you here to debate. We have no intention of allowing Jerusalem to fall into Jewish hands. And whatever you think, we aren’t fools. We know the importance of the Haram al-Sharif.”
Abu stood and walked to the large rotating globe to the left of his desk. He spun it and watched the marble inlaid countries turn. “You know my son, Ismael, perhaps better than I do. He’s not a man given to failure. The Jews have eluded him so far, but he’s a capable man who is now well armed. It’s unlikely these Jews will ever return from Ethiopia. It’s even more unlikely they will return with the Ark. But in that unlikely event . . .” He let the sentence trail off.
Du’ad’s jaw clenched.
“How many in your force now?” Abu asked. They were getting down to the meat of the matter, and Abu preferred it over philosophy.
“A hundred thousand.”
“How many are properly armed?”
“Forty-five thousand in organized militia. Armed with machine guns, light antitank missiles, grenades . . . some land mines and explosives. We also have over five hundred Strela and Stinger surface-to-air missiles.”
It was far more than most of the West assumed by watching television, but nothing compared to the armed weight of their enemy.
“And how quickly could you mobilize?”
“Twenty-four hours. Our best units are always on alert—Force Seventeen. But we are powerless without the Arab states.”
“Perhaps. But if the Ark of the Covenant is brought to Jerusalem, you will not be alone. I am sure of that.”
Abu glanced at Nasser who nodded. They had come up with a plan a year ago over coffee, and the air force commander had surreptitiously dubbed it Dirty Harry, a reference to his favorite American movie, in which a cop played by Clint Eastwood shot first and asked questions later. They hadn’t thought at the time that they would be discussing it as a viable plan this soon.
General Nasser unfolded his legs, stood, and walked to a flask of hot tea, which he poured. He took a deep breath. “Your small force may be the key to the defeat of Israel, Colonel.” He turned and faced Du’ad. “Not through the slow pestering of an intifada, but in a full-scale attack. In fact, without you, I’m not sure we could prevail. Israel may be small, but it contains as much firepower as all of our states together. Not to mention a tactical nuclear arsenal that we know they would use if forced.”
“We tie them in knots with a few stones,” Du’ad objected. “You don’t think you can crush them with your collective armies? Our problem is that Arabs are unwilling to unite.”
“No. I don’t think we could defeat them.” Nasser hesitated. “Not without you. Israel has three Achilles heels, despite their power. Their geography, their dependence on reserves, and their dependence on air power. Their geography because the Arab world now has a country within Israel’s borders: Palestine, which has slowly accumulated, as you say, forty-five thousand armed troops, at the heart of Israel.”
Nasser turned and paced with his arms behind his back. “Secondly, their dependence on reserves because it takes them twenty-four hours to activate them. For the first twenty-four hours of any crisis, Israel is scurrying about, activating its soldiers and bringing its pilots from their synagogues to their airfields. Once they have their air force fully active, they present a huge obstacle to our forces. But only if they get their fighters into the sky. That is their third weakness—their dependence on their air force.”
Du’ad nodded slowly, understanding.
“In the war of ’73 they discovered our plans before we could strike. They demolished us from the air. The way to win a war with Israel, my friend, is to cripple their airfields from the inside. One massive attack that begins on the fourth front—at the heart of Israel—through the deployment of Palestinian soldiers to destroy their airfields before they can activate their reserves. Only then do we come in from the other three fronts—Egypt on the south, Jordan and Saudi on the east, and Syria on the north.” He smiled. “I call it Dirty Harry. We run and shoot, and ask questions later.”
Du’ad blinked. “Give me two days and I will have a thousand four-man teams, armed with missiles, within striking distance of their airfields. Most of their air bases are within forty kilometers of Palestinian territory. A day and a night by foot. An hour by car.”
“Exactly. But the mobilization would have to be very quiet. They are very—”
“You don’t need to tell me how the Jews fight, General. I live in Palestine, remember? I have men who can work their way deep into Israel. And I have another forty thousand who can take to the streets with more than stones. But without a full-scale armed attack on our heels, I would be throwing their lives away. We would last a day, destroy a few airfields, and then be slaughtered.”
“The Israelis don’t believe that your scattered forces could deliver a coordinated attack from multiple locations,” Nasser said.
“Three years ago they were right,” Du’ad said. “Today they are wrong, and to our good fortune, they don’t know it yet.”
“How long can you keep your men in place near the airfields without detection?”
Du’ad shrugged. “A day on some airfields. Three days on the ones with cover nearby. A week if we are very lucky. We run patrols regularly and in some cases have arms cached behind lines.”
“That would suffice. We are interested in their airfields and the roads to the bases, Colonel. You understand? If we delay their reservists from making it to their bases and their fighters from taking off, our chances are very good. But if you fail, our own armies could very well be destroyed at the border. We depend on you as much as you depend on us.”
Muhammed Du’ad stared at Nasser for a very long time, expressionless. “You are serious about this? What do you want me to tell the council?”
Abu spoke up. “For the moment we are only talking. Exploring our options. But any plan to engage Israel would depend on you. We have brought you to ask if you are prepared and willing.”
“I am not only prepared and willing, I demand it,” Du’ad said.
Abu nodded. “We have drawn up the plan in detail.” He took a folder off the desk and handed it to Du’ad. “There’s a specific list of targets and a coordinated outline of attack for your benefit. Subject to your approval, of course. In addition to air bases, the plan recommends the seizure of the electric power plant at Hedera, the oil refineries of Haifa, the chemical tanks of Gelilot, and the telephone company in Bezek. In one single coordinated attack. Confusion must cripple their mobilization. This plan may not leave this room.”
Du’ad took the folder and glanced inside.
“The plan is sound, Colonel,” Abu said. “Our only question is whether we are willing to trust the fate of our collective armed forces to a small band of Palestinian soldiers.”
“My soldiers aren’t vagabond Ashbals, trained in the desert without enemies, General. We have cut our teeth on daily conflict. Palestine is our homeland, and we know it better than we know our wives. We will die for Palestine.”
“Yes, but dying is not the objective. Destroying Israel is.”
“No, General. If the Ark is coming to Jerusalem, then protecting the holy site is our objective. We are first of all Muslims. Whether we die or destroy Israel in the process is secondary.”
Abu stared at him, struck by the simple logic. War had a way of distilling the issues to a few basic realities. Colonel Muhammed Du’ad had lived through his share of war, and his realities were crystal clear. For that Abu envied him. In a strange way he hoped the Jews did bring the Ark to Jerusalem. Ismael and Du’ad would then have their war as they wanted it: to the death. Islam would finally have its day. One way or another, someone’s prophecy would be fulfilled.
“You are right. And I would fight by your side, my friend.”
Du’ad dipped his head after a moment. “What shall I tell the council?” he asked again.
“Tell it to be prepared. Tell it that I am consulting with our neighbors today, beginning with Jordan—if Jordan agrees, I believe the rest will as well. If we have a consensus, then I will send word. Prepare your men, but do not deploy them until you hear from me. And then they must only take their positions. You understand that this all depends on the highly speculative event that these Jews find the Ark and bring it to Jerusalem? We aren’t starting a war, Colonel. We’re merely preparing for the possibility of war. In the event war is justified, our efforts must be perfectly timed. If you attack prematurely, many good Muslims will die without purpose.”
“No death is without purpose, but I understand your point.”
Abu eyed him. “We have to keep this strictly silent. We don’t need another Yom Kippur War.” The Israelis had sniffed a rat then and launched a preemptive strike that had crushed Egypt’s air force.
General Nasser cleared his throat. “We know that some of your leaders would find it difficult to resist stirring things up with rumors. But doing so would also stir up the Jews and neutralize our plan. We depend on absolute silence about the Ark. It’s not an issue of avoidance—it’s integral to our strategy.”
Du’ad didn’t respond to the insinuation.
“Allah will be glorified,” he said.