Transcript
David Essing:
Since the War of Independence in 1948, Israel has succeeded
in making peace with Egypt and Jordan, but the Palestinian terrorism
still rages. This is David Essing reporting.
First, back to the international recognition for Jewish self-determination.
The Jewish people, with ties to its ancient homeland of 3,000
years, was granted independence by the United Nations and the
Palestine Partition vote of November 29th, 1947.
Narrator: The United Nations
debates on the partition resolution were bitter and vehement.
Arab Delagate: The Arab states
cannot tolerate this break in their unity, and this menace to
their political and economic life. They are entitled to have
a decisive say in all matters that affect their regional interests.
Thus, they oppose the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine
now, or at any future time.
Narrator: So went one Arab argument.
And on November 29th, 1947…
General Assembly Chairman: We
will proceed the role call.
UN Official: Afghanistan? No.
Argentina? Argentina? Abstention. Australia? Yes. Belgium? Yes.
Bolivia? Yes. Brazil? Yes. Bella-Russia? Yes. [Count continues
under next voice over] Canada? Yes. Chile? Abstention.
Narrator: The final vote on the
United Nations Palestine Partition Resolution had begun. The
galleries were filled with tense and anxious spectators.
UN Official: Egypt? No.
El Salvador? Abstention. Ethiopia? Abstain. France? Yes.
GA Chairman: I call on
the public, and I hope that you will not have any interference
on the voting on the debate. I am confident on the way you will
behave in a so serious decision taken by this assembly, because
I have decided not to allow anybody to interfere in our decision.
UN Official: Greece? No. Guatemala?
Yes. Haiti? Yes. Honduras? Abstain.
Narrator: Some of the votes…
UN Official: Iran? No. Iraq?
No. Lebanon? No.
Narrator: …were hardly unexpected.
UN Official: Soviet Union? Yes.
United Kingdom? Abstain. The United States? Yes. Uruguay? Yes.
Venezuela? Yes. Yemen? No. Yugoslavia? Abstain.
David Essing: The news of the
historic vote comes near midnight in Israel. In Tel Aviv’s Mugrabi
Square, thousands of people gather to hear of the outcome. What
you are about to hear now is an original recording of the ecstatic
singing of “HaTikvah” by that crowd.
Reporter: A good cross-section of Tel Aviv’s population
was here tonight. About 20,000 jam-packed in Mugrabi Square
where loud speakers have been set up to announce the result
of the important vote that’s now taking place in New York. People
are standing on top of trucks and buses, hanging over balconies
and out of windows, perched on top of street lamps and telephone
poles, all waiting for the momentous word that may spell victory
or defeat for their 2,000-year dream of a Jewish homeland. I
think, I think you can hear that loudspeaker now. What it is?
That’s it ladies and gentlemen, Partition passed, 33 to 13,
and is this crowd excited. They’re starting their hora dances
now. All over the Square little circles are forming. People
are laughing and crying and shouting and whirling around in
a wild Hora dance. Perhaps you can hear it now, they’re starting
to sing “HaTikvah,” the Jewish National anthem, away off in
a corner of the Square and gradually the Hora dances are breaking
up and people are taking up the refrain of “HaTikvah.” All around
me I can see Jews weeping unashamed while they sing. Let’s listen
to them.
Words to “HaTikvah”:
Kol ode balevav P'nimah -
Nefesh Yehudi homiyah
Ulfa'atey mizrach kadimah Ayin l'tzion tzofiyah.
Ode lo avdah tikvatenu Hatikvah bat shnot alpayim:
L'hiyot am chofshi b'artzenu - Eretz Tzion v'Yerushalayim.
L'hiyot am chofshi b'artzenu - Eretz Tzion v'Yerushalayim.
Here is the text in English to “HaTikvah”:
So long as within our breasts
The Jewish heart beats true
So long as still toward the east
To Zion looks the Jew
So long as our hopes are not yet lost
Two thousand years we cherished them
To live as a free people in our land
Land of Zion and Jerusalem
David Essing:
But for David Ben Gurion, the architect of Jewish statehood,
he did not join in dancing the Hora. B.G. was certain the Arabs
would make good on their threat to try and destroy the Jewish
State. These were his feelings: “I watched the people dancing
in the streets celebrating the historic act to which we had
all put our hand. I did not dance with them, though I felt with
them, the emotion of the moment. They were right to dance, I
thought, even though I was all too well aware, as many of the
dancers must have been aware, of the dangers that faced us and
the sacrifice we would suffer in defending the Statehood we
had just gained. I was much concerned with the morrow. The attacks
did, in fact, come the next day.” David Ben Gurion back in 1948.
Since then, the attacks of one sort of another have never ceased.
The deadly Fedayeen raids, sponsored by the Arab States, became
the tactic after Israel defeated their armies. The tension and
violence erupts in the Sinai Campaign of 1956. At long last,
Egypt was forced to open the international Straits of Tiran
to Israel’s Red Sea port of Eilat, but, on borrowed time. On
Israel’s Independence Day of 1967, Egyptian president, Gammal
Nasser, starts massing his army in Sinai, again threatening
Israel. The charismatic Nasser inflames the Arab world with
his fiery rhetoric.
[Nasser in Arabic]
Translation:
If the Jews want war, welcome.
Radio Cairo takes its cue, “Nasser, Nasser, we are behind you.
We’ll slaughter and burn the Jews.” [Singing in Arabic of this
statement – then translation in Hebrew]
David Essing: And so, the Arabs
set the stage for how Israel acquires territory. Sinai again,
Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Israel mobilizes
her reserves with call-up codes broadcast on the Voice of Israel.
[Codes heard in Hebrew] “Love of Zion”; “Stagelights”; “Last
of the Just”, and so on. And while Israel goes on a war footing,
Jews around the world rally to defend the Jewish State, once
again in danger.
[Crowd heard in background]
Jewish Supporters: "…if we are
called upon, we are prepared to don uniforms tomorrow. Time
was when Jews took upon themselves an oath, they raised their
right arms and they said, and you say it with me, “If I forget
thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand be forgotten”. Repeat after
me, raise your right hands, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
may my right hand lose its cunning, and may God be with us and
with Israel.”
...All Jews, regardless of movement even if they don’t belong,
and many Jews that never even thought of Israel, have never
had any contact with Yiddishkeit, and they’re coming forward.
They’re volunteering money, they’re sending their children,
which a month ago would never have had happened, they’ve given
their children the okay to come here.
...I am not frightened. I have sort of taken on some of the
feeling of the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
David Essing: Nasser ups the
ante by closing the Straits of Tiran in violation of international
agreements, backed by the UN.
President Lyndon Johnson: The
United States considers the Gulf to be an international waterway
and feels that a blockade of Israel’s shipping is illegal and
potentially disastrous to the cause of peace.
David Essing: That was U.S. President
Lyndon Johnson. And then, there was British Prime Minister Harold
Wilson.
Prime Minister Harold Wilson:
It is of the view of Her Majesty’s government in the United
Kingdom that the Straits of Tiran must be regarded as an international
waterway through which the vessels of all nations have a rite
of passage.
David Essing: But the international
guarantees prove worthless. Israel is left high and dry when
it comes to opening the Straits of Tiran. The UN pulls out and
the Syrian, Jordanian and Iraqi armies join the Egyptian forces
on Israel’s border. But then, newly appointed Defense Minister
Moshe Dayan talks about time being out of joint.
Defense Minister Moshe Dayan:
It’s too late and too early. Too late to react right away on
the blockading of the Straits of Eilat (Tiran) and too early
to draw any conclusions of the diplomatic management or way
of handling the matter.
David Essing: But enough was enough. The IDF was ordered
to break the Arab stranglehold. Here’s General Ariel Sharon’s
orders to his forces in the South to smash the Egyptian tanks
and troops which were poised to attack Israel from Sinai.
[Voice of PM Sharon in Hebrew]
Translation
by David Essing: Forty B, this is Forty.
Move forward, move forward at full speed and destroy everything
on the way. Over. This is Forty B replying, roger and out.
David Essing: Syria steps up
its shelling of Galilee from the Golan Heights. The Israeli
towns and villages below were at the mercy of the Syrian gunners
on the Golan plateau, which overlooks much of northern Israel.
Meanwhile, Jordanian forces on the West Bank bombard Israeli
civilians in Jerusalem. In the famous, or infamous telephone
call, Egypt’s President Nasser tries to pull a fast one with
Jordan’s King Hussein.
[V.O. in Arabic]
V.O. Translation:
By God, I say that I will make an announcement and you will
make an announcement and we will see to it that the Syrians
will make an announcement that American and British airplanes
are taking part against us from aircraft carriers. We will issue
an announcement, we will stress the matter and we will drive
the point home.
V.O.: Good, said King Hussein.
V.O.: A thousand thanks. Don’t
give up. We are with you with all our hearts and we are flying
our planes over Israel today. Our planes are striking at Israel’s
airfields since morning.
David Essing: However, IDF Chief of Staff, Yitzchak Rabin,
tells a different story altogether.
Rabin: Tonight we are in Romany,
Bir Gafgafa and near the Mitla. Our troops now occupying Sharm
el Sheik and the Strait is open. The bulk of the Egyptian army,
in the Sinai, is in totally disorder but it doesn’t mean that
there are not still battles going there. They are attempting
to withdraw behind the Canal zone. Practically all the West
Bank of Jordan which was once Palestine, is in our hands.
David Essing: And Palestinians
in East Jerusalem had their hopes dashed, according to a foreign
correspondent stationed there.
Foreign Correspondent: They
were quite happy about everything to begin with, you know, they
were jumping around and saying, we’re going to be in Tel Aviv
by tonight or by tomorrow night, and they were listening to
the radio and getting a lot of propaganda over it, and the first
night they thought they’d shot down 100 planes, 100 Israeli
planes. Anyway, by yesterday afternoon they were looking pretty
sad and the people in the hotel where we were, were just on
the verge of tears, some of them. Then when the Israeli troops
started coming down the streets, and they saw them out of the
windows, they gave orders to one of the small boys there to
go around all the rooms, the main rooms, taking down the pictures
of Hussein and Abdul Nasser. And they took all the… They didn’t
put anything up in its place, but they took these pictures down
and tore them up and then chucked them into the trash can. And
then about, oh, about half an hour later the fellow in charge
of the hotel came into our room and sort of looked around and
he was on the verge of tears again and he said, “All these Arab
kings, they’re bad.”
David Essing: For the IDF troops
who had waited for weeks to face the massed Arab threat, the
six-day victory was a tremendous release of tension.
[IDF soldiers cheering]
David Essing: But Chief of Staff,
Rabin says, despite the Arab threat to throw the Jews into the
sea, the IDF had fought the war without hatred.
Rabin: We did not fight as the
Arabs did, with a feeling of hatred in our hearts, and a will
to destroy indiscriminately. We fought with a positive aim of
preserving the existence of this country and its people and
with a sincere longing for the ultimate aim: peace in our time.
David Essing: And at the UN,
then as now, things have not changed that much. Foreign Minister,
Abba Eban had to make Israel’s case for winning the war.
Abba Eban: What Nasser had predicted,
what he had worked for with such undeflecting purpose had come
to pass, the noose was tightly drawn. And so on the fateful
morning of June the fifth, when Egyptian forces moved by air
and land against Israel’s western coast and southern territory,
our country’s choice was plain. The choice was to live, or perish.
To defend the national existence or to forfeit it for all time.
Neither seeking nor receiving help, our nation rose in self
defense. So long as men cherish freedom, so long as small states
strive for the dignity of survival, the exploits of Israel’s
defense forces on that day will be told from one generation
to another with the deepest pride. Today again, the Soviet Union
has described our resistance as aggression and has sought to
have it condemned. There is no international, there is no accurate
foundation for this assertion. We reject it with all our might.
Here was armed force employed in a just and righteous defensive
cause, as righteous as the defense of freedom at Valley Forge,
as just as the expulsion of Hitler’s bombers from the British
skies, as noble as the protection of Stalingrad against the
Nazi hordes. So was the defense of Israel’s security and existence
against those who sought our nation’s extinction.
David Essing: Abba Eban, back
in 1967.
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