FORTY YEARS' WAR

Con Coughlin finds little

to celebrate on Israel's anniversary of independence

Jerusalem AT the point where the main Tel Aviv- Jerusalem highway begins to plough its way through the narrow Bab El Wad gorge, the centuries-old gateway to the holy city, lie the wrecks of several armour- plated trucks destroyed 40 years ago during probably the most desperate moment in Israel's battle for survival.

Wreaths of freshly picked spring flowers now adorn the dull, red anti-corrosion paint that preserves the hulks as a memo- rial to the scores of young Jewish men and women, many of them survivors of the Nazi death camps, who died in the bloody battles of the early months of 1948 to save Jerusalem for the Jewish state.

Perhaps because everyone, men and women, has direct experience of service in the armed forces, Israelis are exuberant patriots and highly conscientious about observing national holidays, both religious and secular. This being Israel's 40th anniversary, it should occasion a tremendous outpouring of nationalist fer- vour, especially as this year's theme is 'democracy', a much-deserved celebration of one of Zionism's enduring achieve- ments. Certainly for those ragged youths of the Haganah who paid an awesomely high price in the spring of 1948 to keep the vital supply lines to Jerusalem open, the prog- amme of events exceeds their wildest dreams for the success of the new state.

In the sultan's pool in Jerusalem, where King David, having first had the pleasure of seeing her bathing naked by moonlight, fell for Bathsheba's voluptuous charms, the Israel Philharmonic is performing a variety of works under the baton of Zubin Mehta. The concert platform is just a few yards from the Jaffa gate entrance to the old city where the Haganah suffered one of its biggest military setbacks when, a few days after the expiry of the British mandate in 1948, a makeshift armoured column failed disastrously to make the all- important penetration of the Ottoman ramparts, a failure which was not avenged until 1967.

The anniversary is a time when a genuine effort is made to set aside all the considerable divisions within Israeli society — between ashkenazi and sephardi, reli- gious and secular, peacenik and settler. More than four months of incessant vio- lence in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, however, have made their inevitable impact on the proceedings to the extent that few Israelis will feel much enthusiastin for indulging in an orgy of self- congratulation. By now most Israeli fami- lies have had direct experience of a conflict everyone wishes would go away, either through sons doing their military service in the territories or husbands called up to do the annual month-long reserve duty.

Israeli army psychologists argue there is no evidence that the shock of exposure to direct and repeated violence in the territor- ies has made any untoward impact on soldiers returning to civilian life. Indeed, the fact that front-line soldiers and reser- vists are regularly granted leave to spend time with their families is a crucial safety- valve which helps to maintain discipline and morale and limits the incidence of systematic brutality. . .

The constant flow of physically and emotionally exhausted soldiers back home, however, has undoubtedly drained the morale of the civilian population which feels that after five wars in 40 years (Independence, 1948; Suez, 1956; Six Day War, 1967; Yom Kippur, 1973; Lebanon, 1982), interspersed with tiring bouts of guerrilla activity, international terrorism and peace diplomacy, they deserve a rest from the interminable Arab-Israeli con- flict.

The Israelis, of course, are not the only ones to suffer. One of the more disturbing features of the violent cycle in the territor- ies is that just when cautious hopes are being expressed that the worst is over, a new wave of disturbances erupts surpassing anything that has gone before. Just a few

days before the start of the Independence Day celebrations on 21 April, 12 Arabs were shot dead and scores more injured, the biggest death toll in a single day.

The chain of protests, demonstrations, strikes, riqts and closures has also severely reduced the nurnber. of West Bank and Gaza Arabs who daily travel to work as day labourers in Israel, so that the muni7 cipal authorities in the big cities have faced a daunting task trying to complete the anniversary arrangements in time. Even so, Israel will not be looking her best. The flags and banners are up, but many of the building projects targeted for completion before the annivetsary, are far from finished. In Jerusalem, large flower-beds earmarked for colourful displays are over- grown with weeds, victims of the neglect of their Arab gardeners.

Two events that fell on the eve of the anniversary celebrations, however, pro- vide a far more telling picture of Israel at 40 than any amount of speeches and fireworks: the conviction in Jerusalem of a former American car worker, John Dem- janjuk, the infamous 'Ivan the Terrible' of Treblinka, and the assassination in Tunis of the PLO's military commander, Khalil Al4Vazir.

The holocaust remains the Achilles' heel of Zionism, nurturing a climate of xenophobia which plays into the hands of the extremists and handicaps the political echelon in its attempts to reach a realistic accommodation with the. more moderate Arab leaders. Under British rules of evi- dence — and the Israeli legal system is Modelled on the British — the case against Demjanjuk, based upon the faltering memories of witnesses of events 40 years past and an identification card of dubious validity, would more than likely have been ruled inadmissible even before a trial got under way.

But then the main purpose of extraditing Demjanjuk from the United States was to enable Israel to stage anothei Eichmann- type Nazi show trial to educate a new generation of Israelis in the holocaust, and from its inception 14 months ago the trial has gripped the nation's imagination. Throughout the country, in shops, offices and in taxis, Israelis have followed the live radio broadcasts of the horrendous atroci- ties committed at Treblinka with an almost pornographic fascination. Even as the final anniversary preparations were being, made, half the attention of most Jewish workers was focused on the judge's final summing- up.

No one reflects Israel's infatuation with the holocaust more than the Prime Minis- ter, Yitzhak Shamir, who 40 years ago, as a leading member of the Stern Gang, was busy masterminding the massacre of Deir Yassin, an Arab village on the outskirts of Jerusalem whose violent destruction at the hands of Irgun and Stern terrorists helped to create the Palestinian refugee problem. Speaking at last week's holocaust martyrs' and heroes' remembrance day he por- trayed a world still intent on the desttuc- tion,Of the Jewish race. We again face the phenomenon of eternal hatred for the eternal people,' he said. 'But.the dream of destroying the Jewish people is a pipe- dream. When will the nations learn that they can never overcome us?'

The assassination. of Wazir, known throughout the Middle East as Abu Jihad, or 'Father of the Holy War% by an eight- man, team of Israeli commandos is yet another example of Israel's unforgiving nature: Ironically Wazir's revolutionary roots stem from his family's expulsion from the Arab town of Ramie in the summer of 1948 as, eager to capture as much land as possible fOr Jewish settlement, the fledg- ling Israeli army systematically forced as many Arabs as possible over the partition lines before a ceasefire could be enforced.

A softly-spoken father of three and one of the more engaging members of the Palesti- nian leadership, he was undoubtedly a key figure in the organisation of the West Bank and Gaza disturbances, and , recently Praised February's attack on an Israeli bus in the Negev desert in which three Israelis and three Palestinian gunmen were, killed. No doubt the decision to remove him now was influenced as much by the need to contain the unrest in the territories as by a desire to avenge. the various anti-Israeli terrorist attacks going back more than 20 years with which he is credited. More to the point, however, is the tithing of the assassination, when the PLO was eagerly seeking international credibility by acting as an intermediary in the Kuwaiti plane hijack, which seems like a deliberate attempt by the IsraeliS to remind the world that the 'PLO is nothing more than a bunch of terrorists.

If, as they say, life begins at 40 and thiS ,is to be Israel's approach to the next four decades, it is difficult to anticipate that Iirael's national experience at 80 will be very much different ftom what it is now.