The Lion’s Gate

by Steven Pressfield

  One of our men, Shimon Arusi, fires two rifle grenades, one after the other. Arusi is a corporal and a formidable fighter. He skillfully skips the grenades under the vehicles, so that they detonate against the wall, directly amid the concentration of Arab Legion soldiers. The carnage is instant and horrific. At once all fire ceases, replaced by shrieks of agony and cries for help. The blast has been contained in the space between the wall and the vehicles, creating a concentrated zone of slaughter.

  We leave the enemy to be cared for by our troops following behind us. Our mission is to find the Wall and hoist the flag.

  Moshe Milo, Zamosh’s radioman:

  Now the craziest thing happens. To get to the Wall, we know, we must pass through Sha’ar Mughrabim, the Moroccan Gate. None of us knows where this is or how hard it will be to break through. In fact, we are carrying explosives to blow the gate open once we locate it.

  Suddenly, out of nowhere emerges an ancient Arab man wearing a white robe, with a huge key that must weigh half a kilo hanging around his neck.

  Yair Levanon commands “A” Company’s 1st Platoon. He dashes straight to this elderly gent, who is clearly confused, frightened, and bewildered. Yair asks him, in English, “Where is the Wailing Wall?”

  The old man is too scared to answer. Levanon speaks to him calmly, promising we will not hurt him. “That key around your neck? What is it for?”

  Apparently the man is in charge of the Mughrabim Gate. He’s the gatekeeper. Haltingly he leads us there. It’s a green wooden gate—a small door within a larger door. It’s locked.

  The first paratroopers reach the Western Wall. Left to right, Moshe Stempel, Yoram Zamosh, Yair Levanon, Aryeh Ben Yaakov.

  Zamosh’s second-in-command is Lieutenant Rafi Malka. He’s speaking to the gatekeeper now in Arabic. One of our sergeants, Ze’ev Parnes, stands beside him. Parnes tells me later that the old man answered in Arabic, very calmly and without fear, referring to 1948 when the Jordanians drove the Israelis out of Old Jerusalem: “I have been waiting for you for nineteen years. I knew you would come.”

  He hands Parnes the key and we open the gate.

  We cross through and there is the Wall.

  Yoram Zamosh, “A” Company commander:

  We are on a flight of stone stairs, looking down. The area is nothing like it is today. Instead of a broad stone plaza, we see only a narrow alley, two meters wide, with Arab tenements directly across from it. The space is empty. No soldiers, no civilians. It’s a lane, that’s all. Patches of weeds sprout from cracks between the stones.

  But it’s the Wall. I recognize it in an instant.

  So does Moshe Stempel. “Zamosh, the flag!”

  He orders me to pick one man and send him down to the Wall, to take possession of it. Then he points to a spot high above—a fence or gate made of iron grillwork. We will mount the flag there, Stempel says, then come back down to the Wall.

  I pick a sergeant, Dov Gruner, to go down the stone steps to the Wall, and leave a couple of men to cover him. We can hear sniper fire. The fight for the Old City is by no means over. The rest of us, led by Stempel, mount back through the Moroccan Gate.

  We’re going back the same way we came, trying to find the section of iron grillwork that we glimpsed from below.

  Sergeant Moshe Milo:

  Somehow a photographer has joined us, Eli Landau, who will one day be mayor of Herzliya. We are hurrying back along the same route by which we approached the steps above the Wall. The iron grillwork we’re seeking is not so easy to find.

  Someone points to a row of apartments and says the grill must be behind there. But there is no way to approach. We hurry along the plaza, which is very quiet. There’s a gate! If we can get through it, the iron grillwork must be somewhere on the other side.

  The gate is called the Chain Gate, though no one knows this at the moment. We cross to it, under a row of arches.

  Now things get even crazier.

  Yoram Zamosh, “A” Company commander:

  As we enter the gate, a young man appears—dark haired, tall, and thin. With him are two women, a blonde and a brunette. “It’s okay,” he says in English. “I’m one of the good guys.”

  He is an American Jew from Brooklyn, New York, who has converted to Islam and moved to Jordanian Jerusalem to work for an English-language newspaper. His name is Abdallah Schleifer, formerly Mark, though, of course, we have no idea of this at the time. He will go on to become a renowned journalist and Middle East scholar.

  The young man opens a door for us. It’s his apartment. “Go through,” he says. “You are right above the Western Wall.”

  We pass through and out onto a terrace. The iron grillwork rises straight ahead. We hurry to it. Its siting is perfect, lofty and prominent, visible from all directions, directly above the Wall.

  Stempel extracts the flag from under my web gear. “You must write on it, Zamosh.”

  Stempel’s hands are trembling.

  I have been awash with emotion all morning. Now suddenly I find I am calm.

  “What should I write?”

  From my breast pocket I retrieve a pen, a beaten-up ballpoint that I’ve been using all week for writing situation reports and messages. I set the flag atop my knee, using my thigh as a writing surface.

  This flag of Israel was placed here by paratroopers of the 55th Brigade,

  “What’s the date?”

  No one knows. The days have run so together.

  “Seven June.”

  I switch to writing on the edge of the stone step. It’s more stable than my knee.

  7 June 1967, who have captured the Old City

  Hoisting the flag above the Western Wall. Left to right, Shimon Arusi, Aryeh Ben Yakov, Ilan Angel, Moshe Stempel, Avremale Shechter, Yair Levanon, Yoram Zamosh. Moshe Milo is partially hidden behind Stempel.

  “Wait, Zamosh!” Stempel stops me. “Not ‘captured.’ Write ‘liberated.’”

  I make the change. Scratch out one word and write the new one. We hang the flag and stand back. The verses of the anthem “Hatikva”—The Hope—croak hoarsely from our throats, finishing with this couplet:

  To be a free people in our land

  The land of Zion and Jerusalem

  Avremale Shechter, sergeant, “A” Company:

  We have crossed back down to the Wall. It’s unbelievably peaceful. Nobody here. No Arabs, no other paratroopers.

  Two nights ago, when the battalion first reached Beit HaKerem, our entry point into Jerusalem, Captain Zamosh had called me aside and asked if I had brought my tefillin. These are Jewish artifacts of prayer, little leather boxes with verses from the Torah inside on parchment. You bind one, the shel rosh, to your forehead, and wrap the other, the shel yad, around your arm.

  I told Zamosh I had brought them.

  “Keep them with you.”

  Avremale Shechter at the Western Wall.

  Yoram Zamosh, “A” Company commander:

  I have known Avremale and his brothers since we were boys. His father was the kindest, most simple and modest man. He worked all his life for the Tnuva Dairy in Tel Aviv, riding his bicycle to work, raising his boys, asking nothing but to be here as a Jew in this land, but feeling always that our people’s return remained incomplete, with the Wall and the Old City in the hands of those who hated us.

  Now I see Avremale, with his Uzi with its folding stock under one arm and the tefillin in place on his head and other arm. I know he is thinking of his father.

  The others want to pray, too, but none of them knows how. Avremale has to teach them.

  My orders from Uzi Eilam are to take the Wall but also to seal one quarter of the Old City. I must rally my company. We still have work to do.

  Zeev Barkai, Battalion 71 operations officer:

  If everyone who claims to have been first at the W
all really was first, there must’ve been a mob of a thousand guys. Our group was not first, I know that. Zamosh and Moshe Stempel got there before us.

  I was with Uzi Eilam, our battalion commander, and Dan Ziv and Benny Ron and a few others from our headquarters group. We ran into Motta Gur on the steps in front of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Uzi asked permission to find the Wall. None of us was sure where it was. “Go,” said Motta. He had already made his own history that day.

  Somehow Uzi found the Wall. We followed down the stone steps. No one was there. We trooped down together. I remember somebody saying that Rabbi Goren had just arrived; he was somewhere up on the Temple Mount, seeking the Wall. Uzi sent one of his soldiers to find him and bring him down to us.

  Benny Ron, attached to Battalion 71:

  If you were to ask a thousand Israelis, “Who blew the first blast on the ram’s horn—the shofar—at the Wailing Wall?” every one of them would answer, “Rabbi Goren.” Because of the famous David Rubinger photo in Life magazine.

  I don’t want to take anything away from Rabbi Goren. I love Rabbi Goren. Rabbi Goren stayed at the Wall for hours. He was there when Rubinger took the iconic photograph of the three paratroopers gazing in wonder at the Wall. He was there when Dayan arrived with Rabin and Uzi Narkiss.

  But that first blast on the ram’s horn was not blown by Rabbi Goren.

  That was our battalion commander, Uzi Eilam.

  Uzi is a trumpet player. He’s been playing since he was a kid. When Rabbi Goren first came down to the Wall, he was so overcome with emotion that he couldn’t catch his breath. He put the shofar to his lips but no sound came out.

  Uzi is a sweet, modest guy. He wasn’t trying to make any statement. He just said, in his quiet way, “Rabbi Goren, I’m a trumpet player. May I try?”

  I snapped the photo. For years after, when people asked Uzi about that moment, he would never dispute Rabbi Goren’s account. He didn’t want to take anything away from this legendary personage. Even after Rabbi Goren had passed on, Uzi still would not put himself forward.

  He’s not that kind of guy.

  Major Uzi Eilam sounds the ram’s horn at the Western Wall. Rabbi Shlomo Goren stands beside him, with Leizer Lavi adjacent. To Eilam’s left is “A” Company commander Yoram Zamosh; to his right, deputy battalion commander Dan Ziv.

  Photo by Benny Ron.

  BOOK SEVEN

  THE DEEP BATTLE

  49.

  A CAMPAIGN OF ROADS

  I have spent this morning, June 6, in cabinet meetings arguing over Jerusalem. I have stood on Mount Scopus and looked out over the Old City, still in Arab hands. Not until afternoon do I have time to turn to events unfolding fast in Sinai.

  Moshe Dayan is minister of defense.

  Tal and Gorodish have broken through in the north along the El Arish axis; south of Tal, Yoffe’s division has reached Bir Laffan; Arik Sharon’s division has smashed through the Egyptian stronghold at Um Katef along the central axis. The internal organs of the foe have become exposed. We have entered the belly of the beast.

  In the theory of “wars of movement”—as developed and put into practice by the Germans in Poland, France and Belgium and the Netherlands, in Russia, and in North Africa—once an attacking force has achieved breakthrough, it must next bring to battle and destroy the enemy’s second line of defense, his divisions held in reserve behind the frontline formations.

  Nasser’s key second-line elements—the 3rd Infantry Division, the elite 4th Armored Division, and the 6th Mechanized Division (excluding the near-division-size Shazli Force, which has for the moment crossed into Israel and eluded our advance)—wait now in the heart of Sinai. As many as five hundred Egyptian tanks are deployed in the vicinity of Bir Laffan, Jebel Libni, El Thamad, Bir Thamada, and Bir Gafgafa. I know the area well. So do Gavish, Sharon, Tal, Yoffe, Gorodish, and all our commanders.

  Our aim is to destroy the Egyptian Army. Where it moves, we will pursue. Where it stands, we will attack.

  Warfare in Sinai is a campaign of roads. An armored column seeking to reach the Canal from the east can proceed by one of only three arteries: the coast highway from El Arish to Qantara, the central road via Bir Gafgafa to Ismailiya, or the southern route through the Mitla, Giddi, or Sudr Passes to the Great Bitter Lake and the waterway north of Suez.

  Major General Yeshayahu “Shayke” Gavish (in dust goggles), chief of Southern Command.

  Photo by Yosi Ben-Hanan.

  If Nasser’s forces attempt to flee, they must take one or all of these routes. There are no other avenues of escape.

  If our forces can block the enemy’s passage along these routes, we can trap them, bring them to battle, and destroy them.

  As our forces press their advantage, however, two elements of supreme significance come into play and must be taken, by me and by the government, into account.

  First is Arab pride and the rulers’ imperative to save face.

  The Egyptian president and his counterparts in Jordan and other allied states will not be able to admit defeat, or even setback.

  Nasser will lie. Hussein will perjure himself. Arab broadcasts will proclaim phantom victories. This has been happening in fact since early yesterday morning.

  These “news reports,” fabricated by Nasser’s bureau of propaganda and abetted by statements from King Hussein, have fortunately served the cause of Israel so far. They have kept the Soviet Union from pressing for a cease-fire to preserve the forces of its client states, and they have confused and misled the enemy’s own forces and allies.

  “Three-quarters of the Zionist air force has been destroyed! Egyptian armored columns are approaching Tel Aviv!”

  Can Nasser himself believe these fictions? The habit of pride and the obligation to save face permeate and infuse the Egyptian chain of command from top to bottom, exerting upon junior officers a nearly irresistible compulsion, when reporting to superiors, to fabricate successes and to underreport (or fail to report at all) difficulties or reversals. Who knows what intelligence accounts are being placed before Nasser and his generals? In war, the wish to believe the best can be overwhelming.

  If Israeli successes continue, however, and if Nasser comes to recognize their actuality, he will be tempted, even compelled by his office and the mythos of his own invincibility, to seek ways to deflect the shame attendant upon such reverses. He may declare before his people and the world that the United States and Britain have provided Israel with covert support. He may even believe this himself. Surely the Jews cannot be humiliating Egypt’s armed forces all by themselves.

  One discovers humor in this at his peril. For such fictions may acquire the weight of fact when they are reported by legitimate (or even questionable) news channels and are believed by tens of millions around the globe.

  This is exactly what happens, as early as the second day. A letter is dispatched by Nasser to Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin, claiming that warplanes of the American Sixth Fleet are attacking Egypt. The Egyptian president calls for immediate aid. Reports of U.S. intervention are broadcast by government channels across the Middle East. Mobs begin attacking American embassies. Saudi Arabia cuts off all oil to the United States. Nasser recalls his embassy from Washington. Within hours Syria, Iran, Algeria, Sudan, Mauritania, and Yemen have severed ties. Nasser may be getting thrashed on the battlefield, but he is rapidly regaining traction in the arena of propaganda, the province of international politics.

  Now the second intangible common to all Arab-Israeli clashes enters the picture. This is the element of the externally imposed cease-fire.

  Sponsor states of the belligerents, wishing to shield their clients and to preserve their own spheres of influence (not to mention prevent the outbreak of a third world war) will begin to apply pressure upon these clients to stop the fighting.

  How will the Powers do this? They will communicate via internation
al bodies such as the UN, or more immediately through diplomatic channels, via embassies, individuals of influence, and in person-to-person wires and communiqués. In Israel we will hear directly from the Russians. Cables from the Kremlin will menace us with “grave consequences” and “dire outcomes.” Kosygin and Brezhnev will warn of impending military action. Israel must take such threats seriously. A growl at us from Moscow is like a bear intimidating a cub. With one paw the Russians can flatten us.

  The Americans, on the other hand, will counsel prudence. Johnson, Rusk, McNamara, and their surrogates will urge us to “take the long view,” to “let victory lay the groundwork for peace.” U.S. diplomacy will advocate “breathing space,” a “cooling-off period.” Israel must lead by reason, the Americans will argue. She must take the high road. Let her be the first to speak for amity and to act in accord with the world’s wish for peace.

  The Powers will want Israel to stop fighting before she has achieved complete victory.

  Such are the difficulties with which the government and I must contend. The troops in the field know nothing of this. Their aim remains unaltered: Keep advancing at all costs, take as much as you can.

  “Bite and eat what is on your plate.”

  50.

  AN UNSEEN RAINBOW

  We are out of cigarettes. A search of a wrecked Egyptian truck produces nothing but two of our soldiers shouting to us, “Hey, no looting!” We spy some abandoned tents, park, and go in. Ah, smokes! Cleopatras, a quality Egyptian brand.

  Yael Dayan advances with Sharon’s division into central Sinai.

  We have stumbled into a camp for Egyptian officers. Treasures abound. French cologne, fifths of Johnnie Walker Black, pressed uniforms with riding boots, silk underwear folded in drawers. In a bedside cupboard: Revlon eyeliner kits, makeup, nylon stockings with labels from East Germany.