“The short answer is ‘Yes’. The slightly longer answer is that the government will not loan money to companies that obviously have no clue what they are doing or that won’t have the means to repay the loans in the future.”
After the meeting was over the Minister asked the CEO of Teva to join him in his office.
“Abraham, we need you to be the first,” the Minister told the executive. “You have several drugs that will sell like crazy and are also impossible to reverse engineer with 1941 technology.”
“Good,” Abraham Hasson responded. “I have production capacity about eight times larger than local consumption. We must export to survive. Where and when do we start?”
***
Avigdor Mizrahi had been busy. He had moved his staff from the house near Downing Street to a leased mansion on Hanover Square. There was an option to buy, which might become important if Israel decided to use this house for its permanent embassy. Mizrahi found a real estate agent at the synagogue he attended from time to time in Golders Green. Beth Hamedrash was a small and relatively new congregation, established in 1934. Most of its members were refugees from Germany; Mizrahi was just one more foreigner among them. Being a Palestinian was a bit unusual, but the community was diversified enough and new enough not to look too closely into his business – especially since he discouraged inquiries.
He explained to the agent, a London native, that he needed a large house with a private garden, separated from its neighbors and in the center of London to be used as a combined office and residence. The agent asked what he was going to do there – just friendly interest from a fellow Jew. Mizrahi presented his cover story: He was a businessman from Palestine, importing and exporting goods; his business was doing well and he needed both an office and a place to live.
When he saw the house for the first time in early August he rejected it. It looked awful – Most of the windows were broken and part of the roof was missing. No doubt there was extensive damage to the interior as well. In his judgment repairs would take too long and the house was probably too big. It took more than a week of looking at alternatives for Mizrahi to take a second look at the house on Hanover Square.
Closer inspection revealed two wings. The northern wing, facing Hanover Square and Princess Street, had taken a direct hit from a German bomb and was wrecked. The blast had also done significant damage to the southern wing facing Hanover Square and Hanover Street, but the basic structure was still sound. Mizrahi decided there were advantages to taking over a damaged, empty house. The price was low which fit his image as a businessman, even if cost was not really a major concern since the British Government provided a line of credit. The whole structure, when restored, would be big enough to house the embassy of a major power with an enclosed courtyard that could provide parking for a future fleet of official vehicles. Under the guise of repairs, modern communications and security equipment could easily be installed.
The remodeling would have taken forever without support from Churchill’s office. With it, the basic structure was repaired by the end of September, with work left for Mizrahi’s Israeli crew. His staff was now up to eleven, including a security expert as well as communications and computer engineers. They installed networking equipment, satellite antennas, surveillance cameras and intrusion alarms, none of which were visible from the public areas of the building.
On Thursday, October 9, 1941, the Israelis moved into the building.
On Monday Mizrahi received a telephone call from the Foreign Office inviting him to meet with the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden. Instead of accepting the invitation, Mizrahi asked to speak to Eden.
“Sir, I can’t connect you,” the woman stammered. “The Secretary of State is not available. I suggest that you come tomorrow at 11:00 am and discuss the matter with him then.”
“Please tell the Secretary that he is invited to my new office. We just inaugurated it and I would be honored to see him here tomorrow at 11:00. I take it he does not have any other engagements at that time.”
“Sir, I will give him your message.” She sounded indignant.
An hour later Mizrahi’s phone rang again. “Mr. Mizrahi,” Eden sounded like he was about to lecture him on something, “what is it with inaugurations and you inviting me?”
“Mr. Secretary, we just moved into our new offices and I would be honored if you came here. It is only fitting that our first guest be the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. It is also much better for security. At this point in time it may look somewhat unusual for a humble Palestinian to be visiting you.”
Eden thought for a moment and accepted the invitation.
The next day, at 11:00 a.m. sharp, a black Bentley stopped in front of the embassy. Security cameras identified Anthony Eden in the back seat and the gate swung open.
Their conversation took place in a small reception room. It was brightly lit by full spectrum lights - cheerful, despite the overcast October sky. Eden accepted a glass of Champagne and was introduced to the unofficial embassy’s First Secretary as well as the Military Attaché.
After brief pleasantries Eden went straight to the point. “Gentlemen, the British government has decided, as a gesture of generosity and friendship, to settle the issue of the Crown Protectorate of Kuwait. I suggest that we leave the details to our subordinates.”
“Mr. Eden, I tend to take care of most of the details myself. I suggest that we settle them now and leave the drafting of legal documents to our subordinates.”
Eden considered whether or not to be offended and decided not to be. “As you wish, Mr. Mizrahi. Kuwait is our protectorate. Has been since the last war. So we need the agreement of the ruling sheikh before we can transfer the protectorate to you. This will take some diplomacy and, like everything in the Middle East, time.”
“But Britain has explicit transferable treaties with the ruling family of Kuwait. Your country can unilaterally transfer those treaties to us. We then become the protecting power. It can be accomplished in a day. We have all the papers drawn up. The only thing missing is the British Crown’s seal and appropriate signatures.”
Eden wasn’t ready for this approach and thought furiously of how to respond. The Foreign Office counted on at least a year for negotiations with Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah. By then, they hoped the issue would be moot.
There was no real reason for their reticence. The oil discovered in Kuwait in 1938 hadn’t proven to be commercially viable. The war stopped any further exploration and development. Politically Kuwait was insignificant, only a small speck on the map surrounded by many larger British protectorates, including Iraq. But it was against the Foreign Office’s policy to give away anything, especially to these insolent Jews. If only they were still dealing with the small Palestinian Jewish community: They could be easily ignored.
It took longer than one day but by the last week of October, 1941, the agreement was signed. The British would notify the Kuwaitis of the changes in the protectorate when - and only when - Israel told them to do so.
***
Avigdor Mizrahi was surprised by the sudden British initiative with Kuwait. His guess was that Rommel would have to come close to Cairo before the Empire would be willing to trade Kuwait for Israeli help. He was curious why Churchill had suddenly decided to move on this issue. His guess was that the news coming out of Russia had scared the British government – If the Soviets collapsed, which didn’t seem impossible, Britain would be left alone and Israeli assistance would become vital. So they decided to placate a powerful ally. Of course Eden tried his best to drag out the negotiations, but the quick conclusion of the agreement indicated that Churchill did not support this policy.
The British government did not know, of course, that due to the Israeli attack on Ploesti and resulting German fuel shortages the Soviet front was holding better than it had in the original history. On October 10, 1941, the Germans made an effort to wipe out a pocket of Soviet forces trapped in Bryansk, some 250 kilometer southw
est of Moscow. In the original history they had succeeded, taking about 50,000 Soviet prisoners of war. This time around, the Red Army used some of their forces from the Kiev pocket to counterattack the German pincers. The Bryansk pocket was evacuated through the resulting breach in the German ring. The net result was a loss of several thousand troops for the Germans and a rescue for most of the Soviet force. There was also a more important change: the Red Army learned that standing in defense to the last man was not a feasible policy. Even Stalin seemed to concede this point after hundreds of thousands of his soldiers got out of encirclement and lived to fight another day. The German Army Group Center was still advancing, but not as fast as in the original time-line. Fuel shortages were severe, impacting on everything. Logistics were relying mostly on horse-drawn transports – no news there. Now though, panzers were often idle, waiting to be refueled, and the Luftwaffe had to ration its ground support for fear of running out of high octane aviation gasoline. They cleared the Vyazma pocket on October 19 but instead of taking 650,000 prisoners, 1000 tanks and 4000 artillery guns, the Nazis captured only less than a 100,000 men and almost no equipment.
The war in the East was not going well for the Germans but they didn’t know it yet. Hitler announced on October 20, ten days later than in the original history, that the war in the East was won.
***
Amos Nir opened the Cabinet meeting. “Hanna, gentlemen, there are a number of issues we have to decide today. First, an update: the Germans have been much more efficient than we expected. As of last week, ending October 24, 1941, we have taken in about four million refugees. The railroads in the Ukraine are functioning, though not at full capacity. The Brindisi base is receiving about 40,000 people a day. This is about the limit of our capacity to transport them to Israel, so as things stand now we are balanced. At the current rate, we’ll be done with Operation Moses by December of this year. There is a caveat though. As you all know, the Nazis are less successful than in our original history. This, paradoxically, may interfere with our rescue efforts since it will take them longer to conquer the areas where they previously exterminated Jews. It is possible that they won’t conquer some areas at all. We will have to wait and see how things go. The net result may be that more of our people will be trapped in the Soviet Union, ending Operation Moses earlier than expected.
“We are running behind in building our refugee cities. We need to prioritize - It seems that we can either build housing or industry. We don’t have enough capacity to do both.”
The Industry and Infrastructure Minister cut in. “I disagree. We don’t have enough capacity if we stick to modern construction techniques. Up to now, I’ve met resistance from several people here to employing the newcomers in construction. These are smart people that will learn fast. I see no reason not to have them build their own houses.”
“I think that’s a great idea,” the Finance Minister said. “Make it a community project – We can have expert construction workers instructing and the community builds their own houses.”
“But that means using cinder blocks and all kinds of outdated technology, since we don’t have enough capacity to make prefabricated elements,” the Absorption Minister objected.
“Sure, but it’s better than having these people live in tents while waiting for housing, and then wait some more because we don’t have enough skilled construction crews to build their workplaces,” responded the Industry Minister. “If we let them work on their own housing, we can use the skilled crews to build the factories we need. Granted, it is not very efficient, but it will be done faster than otherwise, and, as a bonus, I believe it will boost morale among the immigrants.”
Amos Nir stopped the discussion: “I think that this is a good idea and we should try it. Since the rails to Central Sinai are laid already, we may as well start the first experiment near the Refidim Industrial center. It’s time to replace the tent city with a real town. I would also encourage entrepreneurs among the new immigrants to start their own businesses – construction and others as well. They will need supervision and licensing, but there are lots of skilled people out there that are eager to do something. The Infrastructure Ministry will take care of it. Please report your progress to the cabinet next week.
“The next item on our agenda is Japan, or rather their attack on the U.S.,” continued Amos. “There are several decisions we need to make. Should we intervene to keep the U.S. from entering the war? The head of the Mossad, our psychologist and the chief of the history team are here with a detailed analysis of our options. Let’s invite them in and see what they have to say before we go on.”
The head of the Mossad took a seat at the conference table. “We performed a detailed analysis of what would happen in four different scenarios. The first is: we do nothing. In this case, most likely Japan will bomb Pearl Harbor on schedule, the U.S. will declare war on Japan and probably Hitler will declare war on the U.S. We are not one hundred percent sure about Hitler’s declaration since we changed history quite a bit and his declaration made limited sense to begin with.
“The second scenario is: we prevent the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Absent the attack, the U.S. stays out of the war.
“The third scenario is: we allow the Japanese attack and America’s reaction to proceed as before but intervene to somehow prevent Hitler’s declaration of war. This will in all likelihood prevent the U.S. from declaring war on Germany.
“The fourth and last scenario is the most complicated: we allow the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to proceed, but interfere with the Japanese actions after the attack and prevent Hitler from declaring war on the U.S.”
“I have a question,” the Industry and Transportation Minister said. “Why intervene at all? Just let history go the way it is supposed to go – like in your first scenario.”
“This is the question,” responded the head of the Mossad. “In our time-line the U.S became a superpower because of its involvement in the war. Spurred by their war effort, America developed new technologies, culminating with the atomic bomb. Its industrial base grew and since its armed forces were a major component of the Western allies’ occupying armies the U.S. became a major influence in post war Europe. Paradoxically, the U.S. technological and scientific effort also helped the Soviets to become a superpower since the Soviets had such a good spy network. Out of the war, it’s unlikely that the U.S. will invest the necessary resources in the Manhattan project, delaying their atomic bomb indefinitely. On the other hand we are sure that by now the Americans know that the Germans are working on teleportation and not an atomic bomb. This should reduce the incentive to build the bomb.
“U.S. participation also helped the Soviets in that Roosevelt gave Stalin all of Eastern Europe. Churchill objected, but being a junior partner in the alliance he acceded to Roosevelt’s policies. If the U.S. is not a party to the European war, it will be up to Churchill, and probably us, to reign in Stalin.
“With no American participation, the outcome in Europe will be different as well. Left to its own devices, Britain will not be ready to invade Europe in 1944. This will lead to a longer war and probably more of Europe occupied by Stalin. Unless we do something about it.”
“Like what?” The Finance Minister asked.
“We have a number of options in this regard. I suggest that this issue be left for a future decision.”
“Are you suggesting that a world with Stalin’s forces occupying all of Europe is better than the world we came from?” the Finance Minister asked sarcastically.
“No, what I am saying is that we can insure with a very high probability that the Soviets go no further than the old German border.”
Amos intervened. “Please continue with your analysis.”
“If we prevent the attack on Pearl Harbor there will be even greater repercussions in the Far East,” the head of the Mossad continued. “Japan will continue building its empire and will also continue its genocide of the Chinese and other people it conquers. Depending on t
he means we choose to prevent Pearl Harbor, they may be able to continue for many years, slowly exhausting themselves until they collapse. It will be a mess that we have very little means to prevent.
“There is also a real possibility that Japan will attack the Dutch and British colonies even if the attack on Pearl Harbor doesn’t happen. After all, the main reason for this attack was their need for oil. This hasn’t changed.
“The third scenario, with Hitler not declaring war on the U.S., looks a bit better. The U.S. will concentrate on defeating Japan and will likely be done with them in a couple of years. This scenario has the advantage of decreasing the likelihood of the U.S. becoming a superpower, also limiting America’s ability to pressure the British into giving up their empire. In our time-line Britain gave up mainly because of economical reasons: it could not both support the empire and pay its war debts. The Brits’ position is somewhat better now that their shipping is not being sunk by the Germans. We project that without Roosevelt’s pressure, Churchill will hang on to the empire, at least for a short time. We also think that our intervention in the war makes him more likely to stay on as Prime Minister until well beyond the end of the war. In our time-line he was defeated mainly because the British public was exhausted by the wartime deprivations and bloodletting as well as the disappointment of the Empire falling apart.”
“What is your recommendation?” Amos asked.
“It seems to me that the best outcome for both us and the rest of the world will be to have Hitler not declare war on the U.S. We will get a world that will have three almost equal powers: the Soviet Union, the U.S. and the British Empire. Israel is going to be the fourth – how equal or not to the others only the future will tell. A slow dissolution of the Empire, less violent and abrupt than in our time-line, will be beneficial for everybody. This will also be a world where we will be the only nuclear power, for at least 10 years, and between three great powers there will be space for a fourth one.
The Shield: a novel Page 31