HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_027899.jpg

But a series of accidents, in Israel’s life and in mine, would soon point me in a dramatically different direction. The first became known as the Rotem Crisis, and it delivered a jolting reminder of Israel’s vulnerability to a surprise attack from neighboring Arab states. Militarily, we were far stronger than in 1948. But we were still a young country, at an early stage in our economic development. Our defense strategy rested on a recognition we could not afford to sustain a large standing army, relying instead on a pool of trained reservists. The problem was that a full call-up of the reserves would require something like 48 hours. That meant some form of early warning was critical.

Rotem erupted in February 1960, about halfway through my tironut, and began almost farcically. The Chief of Military Intelligence, Chaim Herzog, was at a diplomatic receiption in Tel Aviv when he began chatting with a guest he knew well: the head of the local CIA station. What, the American asked, did he make of the fact that Egypt had moved its two main armored divisions into the Sinai, toward the border with Israel? Herzog came up with a suitably woolly reply, about how it was obviously a situation which bore watching. But the truth was that neither he nor anyone else in Israel had any idea about the Egyptian mobilization. He left the party as soon as he could, to tell Dayan and Ben-Gurion. When a reconnaissance flight the next day confirmed that dozens of battle-ready tanks had been rolled forward toward the Suez Canal, Ben-Gurion and the generals scrambled for a response.

They did not want a war. Ben-Gurion was particularly worried that in responding to Nasser’s buildup, he might inadvertently escalate things further. He vetoed the idea of a full mobilization. But he did order a more limited call-up, of about 7,000 reservists. He placed the air force on alert. He directed the four brigades responsible for the defense of southern Israel, including our armored brigade near Beersheva, to move within a few miles of the border – and gave us the additional role of sending several overnight munitions convoys to equip the hastily assembled border force.

The first sign I saw that anything extraordinary was going on was the sudden movement of tanks and APCs inside our camp. At first, no one told us raw recruits anything. We were left to look on, and stay out of the way. But with our operational units preparing to move forward, the problem was that there seemed no one else with the expertise, experience and local knowledge to lead the supply columns. So our training battalion was summoned before the platoon commander. “Any volunteers,” he asked. When none of us raised a hand, he said: “Come on. One of you must have grown up around here. That means the

51
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_027899