A Long Road

Last week a weary, gentle man, who has been a citizen of two nations, sailed from New York to become President of a third. Israel's President Chaim Weizmann was born in Russia, had served Britain brilliantly as a chemist in World War I, and had lost a son in the R.A.F. in World War II. But his journey would not take him through his second homeland. "To our great sorrow," explained Mrs. Weizmann, "the attitude of Great Britain has prevented us from going to London . . . We don't wish to come to England on sufferance."

Said ailing Dr. Weizmann: "We have reached the culmination of a great idea. It's a long road beset with many difficulties . . . With the blessings of God, we will succeed."

...

At three places in the land of his destination, Dr. Weizmann's countrymen were challenging their difficulties with different degrees of success:

Royal Greeting. Into the Old City of Jerusalem one day last week came King Abdullah of Trans Jordan, clad in a new uniform and white Arab headdress. Playing the double role of Saladin and Richard the Lion-Hearted, he prayed first at the Dome of the Rock Mosque, third holiest shrine in Islam, then in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. As the little king walked through the narrow lanes Arabs shouted: "Long live Abdullah! You are King of Jerusalem!"

Next day he did become the ruler of the Old City, though not of the Jewish-held modern town. In the morning two aged rabbis, Clutching their, long black robes about them and waving white flags, picked their way through the rubble of the' Jewish quarter toward Zion Gate. They had come to offer surrender in the name of the Old City's little (1,500) colony of Orthodox Jews and its smaller remaining band (290) of armed defenders who had held out during five months of Arab siege, eleven days of Arab Legion attack.

On the Tel Aviv road, at a point 18 miles west of Jerusalem, raged the real battle. If Arabs held the road, they could eventually starve out the 100,000 Jews in the new city of Jerusalem.

Dusty Plain. Israel's fighting men were desperately trying to reopen the lifeline road. Last week they attacked near Latrun, where commanding hills suddenly rise from the rocky plain. Near by is the Ajalon Valley, where Joshua commanded the sun to stand still until the Israelites "had avenged themselves upon their enemies." Last week the moon was not so obliging. Haganah fighters, who are used to night battles, had attacked in its light. But heavy Arab fire stopped them. The morning sun found Jews still in the dusty plain, firing from the cover of rocks.

Haganah officers who had served with the British in the Jewish Brigade in World War II listened grimly to familiar British commands, given in a cool, clipped English voice, over the Arab communication net. With a deadly precision in sharp contrast to the inefficiency of Arab volunteers, the Arab Legion laid down heavy mortar fire. Haganah girls crawled out on the battlefield to bring in the wounded.

Clean Sweep. In northern Galilee, where the Israelis were not opposed by Abdullah's Legion, they had swept out all Arab forces in "Operation Broom." Last week, in Palestine's oldest kibbutz (communal settlement) south of the Sea of Galilee, stood a fire-blackened Syrian tank, which the Jewish defenders had stopped with a homemade Molotov cocktail. A scorched trail led from the tank to the charred torso of an Arab tankman who had died trying to escape the flames.

The tank and the body, four miles inside the Palestine border, were the not-very-high-watermark of the boasted Arab advance in Galilee. By last week the Arab tide had ebbed back to the borders, and beyond.

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