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Cairo to Damascus*
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i, '52
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D DOD1
JOHN ROY CARLSON
CAIRO
TO
DAMASCUS
1 9
Alfred A. Knopf
5 i
N E w YORK
L* C. CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 5 1 - 1 1 O 6 8
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK,
* PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
Copyright 195J by John Roy Carlson. All rights reserved. No part of
this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing
from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages
and reproduce not more than three illustrations in a review to be
printed in a magazine or newspaper. Manufactured in the United States
of America. Published simultaneously in Canada by McClelland &
Stewart Limited.
FIRST EDITION
TO
MARIE
WHO STOOD BY LOYALLY
THROUGHOUT THE STORMY YEARS: 1947-51
PREFACE
IT seems to me there are two ways, generally speaking, to pre-
pare a book, take a trip, or, for that matter, to live a life. One
may go at it dilettante fashion, as a tourist nibbling at ex-
perience, titillating the emotions yet emotionally starved,
stimulating oneself with ambition yet forever tortured by
frustration. Circumstances and temperament, however, may
conspire together so that, with the freedom of a nomad, one
can escape the straightjacket of everyday boredom, hurdle
fences of space and time, and consume life at its sources. Prop-
erly directed, such an earthly life may give wing to one's
imagination, clarity to one's thinking, strength to one's convic-
tions, and even bring one nearer to the simple, eternal truths of
God and spirit
This book, I feel, belongs in the second category the cate-
gory of the primitive.
I left my country quite as uninformed, I am afraid, as are
most Americans with respect to other peoples and other shores.
But everywhere I went I sought to touch reality always
honestly, and always at first hand. Everywhere I clung close to
the smells, the flora and fauna of native existence. In that
spirit I have written of the Arabs among whom I lived. I found
much good and much evil evil acquired through a feudal
order that, in rny opinion, remains the Arab's greatest enemy
and his greatest barrier to emergence from the dark ages. I am
grateful for Arab hospitality and the kindness I was shown, but
a reporter, like a physician, must not remain blind to the ills
plaguing his subject.
With no desire to attribute to myself or my writings any
viii Preface
exaggerated importance, it is my fervent hope that the many
Armenians living in the Arab Middle East will not suffer at
the hands of fanatics because an American of Armenian descent
happened to write this book. To them I can only say that I
have told the story honestly, as I saw it. And to my Arab
friends who asked only that I "tell the truth/' I can say in all
conscience that I have told the truth. Let me assure them that
I speak in this book as an American, and purely in an individual
capacity, with no ties to or membership in any Armenian-
American body save the church into which I was born. Any
retribution against the Armenians a minority island in a
Moslem sea would be an unwarranted and senseless cruelty.
I have written this book with the hope that it will bring both
Arabs and Jews into truer focus for the reader; that it will help
reveal what they are and what they are not, what may be ex-
pected of them and what is impossible. I pray that these ancient
Semitic peoples will reconcile their differences, that Palestine
refugees who, in the main, left their homes because Arab
leaders urged them to do so expecting a short war and a quick
victory will be resettled. The only alternative to peace is
disaster for Arab, Jew, and Christian, for none may hope to
prosper alone. Together they may ultimately build a prosperous
and democratic Middle East. To remain apart, at dagger's
point, means only that Communism and anarchy can be the
ultimate victors.
This book could not have been written without the faith
and love of friends. It would never have seen the light of day
without the help of those who stood by steadfastly through the
four stormy years of its preparation and writing, 1947-51. To
Harold Strauss, my editor, and Paul Reynolds, my literary
agent, I am grateful for their continuous faith and patience
since they took me on four years ago. To the Reverend L. M.
Birkhead I am equally thankful for his continued understand-
ing and kindness. To Gerold Frank, who helped enormously
in the editing and in clearing up a vast amount of the under-
brush of writing, I especially owe a lasting debt of gratitude.
Preface ix
After my book was completed, I asked a Syrian Christian
(who must remain anonymous because of possible retaliation
against his relatives abroad) and the Reverend and Mrs. Karl
M. Baehr to read the manuscript critically. My thanks also go
to these Christian and Arab friends for their suggestions. How-
ever, it must be pointed out that the responsibility for this
book text and illustrations is entirely mine.
April 9, 1951
JOHN ROY CARLSON
CONTENTS
Prologue: The Tree Bears Fruit 3
BOOK I
i: London: The Odyssey Begins 17
n: Cairo: The King's Jungle 4 2
in: Green Shirts and Red Fezzes 60
iv: The Moslem (Black) Brotherhood 78
v: Behind the Correspondent's Curtain 93
vi: World of the Koran: Islam Uber Alles 109
vii : The Marxist Underground 126
vm: Off for the Holy War/ 1 38
DC: The Holy City 163
x: Gun-Running! 183
xi : Return to Jerusalem 202
xii: With the Arabs in Jerusalem 221
BOOK II
xni: Medinat Yisrael Is Born 245
xiv: Life in the Besieged City 260
xv : A Week of Agony: A Consul Is Murdered 279
xvi: "Escape" to the Arabs 294
xii Contents
xvn: Arabs, Armenians, Catholics 307
xvm: The Last Exodus 323
XDC: Bethlehem and Jericho 342
xx: Philadelphia Is in Jordan 362
xxi: Damascus: Jewel of the Orient 379
xxn: Das Arabische Biiro: Der Grossmufti 401
xxm: Beirut: Farewell to the Arabs 424
xxiv: Israel, and Going Home 449
Appendix: Arab-American Liaison Network 471
Index follows page 474
LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS
(immediately following this list)
All Photographs by John Roy Carlson
Followers of Truth being briefed for the Holy War (i.)
AHMED HUSSEIN and SHEIKH MAHMOUD ABOU EL AZAAYIM (2.)
Followers of Truth leave for the Holy War (3, 4.)
SHEIKH HASSAN EL BANNA (5.)
FAWZY BEY EL KAWOUKJY (6.)
MAHMOUD NABAOUI (7.)
ABDELKRIM (8.)
Behind the native curtain in Egypt: Ismailia (9. 10. 11.)
Street scenes in Gaza (12. 13. 14. 15.)
In the Old City of Jerusalem: CAPTAIN FADHIL RASHID BEY (16.)
SHEIKH ISMAIL EL ANSARY (17.) Jewish Quarter burning
(18.)
The funeral of an Arab chief (19. 20. 21. 22.)
In the besieged New City: The Pantiles (23.) Hadassah clinic
(24.) Funeral of two Americans (25.)
PATRIARCH GUREGH II ISRAELIAN (26.)
With the Armenians (27. 28.)
Looting of the Old City Jewish quarter (29. 30. 31.)
xiv Illustrations
Surrender of the Old City Jews: RABBI BEN ZION HAZZAN IREQ
(32.) Haganah prisoners (33.) Ruins of Hurvath Syna-
gogue (34.)
Amman (35. 36.)
KING ABDULLAH and priests (37.)
HAJ AMIN EL HUSSEINI, the Mufti (38.)
MAROUF DAWALIBI (39.)
SALAH FATTAH EL IMAM (40.)
CAPTAIN HERBERT VON FURST (41.)
MOUSTAFA EL ARISS (42. )
PIERRE GEMAYEL (43.)
Smoking the josie (44*)
Israel: The port of Haifa (45.) Children at Kibbutz Afitim
(46.)
My birthplace in Alexandropolis (47. 48.)
MAPS
(by Rafael Palados)
The Middle East from Cairo to Damascus PAGE 16
Jerusalem and Its Environs PAGE 244
i. Followers of Truth (in the khaffiyas) being briefed at Green
Shirt headquarters for the Jehad, Holy War. The banner at right
reads: "The Mohammedan Army of Allah founded to liberate
Palestine and all the East." The banner at left reads, in part: "The
Mohammedan Army of Allah conqueror and victorious."
3. Holy Warrior
with "gizzard slitter."
2. AHMED HUSSEIN,
fuehrer of the Green
Shirts, and Sheikh
Mahmoud Abou el
Azaayim, chief of the
Followers of Truth, re-
view a contingent of
Holy Warriors in
Cairo.
4. Followers of Truth
leaving for the Jchacl.
c SHEIKH HASSAN EL BANNA,
Supreme Guide, Moslem Brotherhood.
7. MAHMOUD NABAOUI,
editor of an Egyptian Communist weekly.
6. FAWZY BEY EL KAWOUKJY,
Chief, Arab Army of Liberation
8. EMIR ABD EL
"the Lion of Morocco."
9. An Arab bakery, Isma;
BEHIND THE
NATIVE CURTAIN
IN EGYPT
10. A cobbler, using old tire ,
for rubber soling, Ismailia. I
11. A game of back-
gammon, Ismailia.
12 NAZAR CHALAWITCH, YugO-
slav Holy Warrior, with Arab
companion.
"13. The town square, showing
male Arab lovers walking with small
fingers entwined. Another couple
are arm in arm.
14. Holy Warrior carrying
"immunity scroll" his guarantee 1
against death by "lead and steel" in
battle.
IN GAZA
15. Arab refuge^
fleeing their home
Jong before the Man
date ended.
l6. CAPTAIN FAD-
HIL RASHID BEY,
(Iraqi commander,
at headquarters.
17. SHEIKH ISMAIL EL ANSARY, custodian of the Dome
of the Rock, who prayed daily for the death of "Zionist"
President Truman.
IN THE OLD CITY OF JERUSALEM
18. Jewish quarter set afire by the Arabs.
TOE FUNERAL OF AN ARAB CHIEF
On April 8, 1948, an Arab hero, KADER BEY EL HUSSEINI, was killed
in action near Jerusalem. His funeral was held the next day.
f photographed the mourners on their way to the home of the
Arab leader [19]. Suddenly a volley of rifle shots rang out. Sequence
shots show the mourners firing their guns [20], running from the
square in the belief that a Haganah attack is imminent [21], and
the square deserted [22].
The rifle volley was in honor of the departed Arab chief. The
incident was characteristic of poor Arab morale.
23. The Pantiles Pension, home and sanctuary of
American and British correspondents during the siege.
24. At the peak of the daily bombing: a typical scene
at the Hadassah clinic.
25. Funeral services for CONSUL-GENERAL THOMAS c.
WASSEN and HERBERT c. WALKER, an American sailor
both murdered by anti-American maniacs.
IN
THE
BESIEGED
NEW
CITY
a. RABBI BEN ZION HAZZAN IREQ, J2,
aiding the surrender flag, with Arab Legion soldier.
SURRENDER
OF THE
OLD CITY
JEWS
35- Classical Amman.
Ruins of a Roman ampitheater
in the heart of Jordan's capital.
at the Hadassah clinic.
25. Funeral services for CONSUL-GENERAL THOMAS c.
WASSEN and HERBERT c. WALKER, an American sailor
both murdered by anti-American maniacs.
HUSSEINI the 3Q. PROFESSOR MAROUF DAWALIBI,
oSed at his S,o engineered the Muffi's escape
Damascus headquarters. from France.
FACES IN DAMASCUS
FACES IN BEIRUT
. MOUSTAFA EL ARISS,
leading Lebanese Communist.
43. PIERRE GEMAYEL, chief
of the Christian Lebanese Falang
44. Smoking the josic.
45. Haifa, the port of the Promised Land, viewed from the
Hatikvah,
46. Nursery children at Kibbutz Afikim on an educational tour
of its plywood factory.
47- My first glance of the yard in which I played as a child. It
was under conditions similar to these that many Greek refugees
were forced to live.
48. The house in which I was horn, now ramshackle and occupied
by refugees. My bedroom was on the lower floor, at the left.
MY
BIRTHPLACE
IN
ALEXAND.ROPOL
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
(PROLOGUE)
THE TREE BEARS FRUIT
Our roots, transplanted from Europe, bear fruit here.
On free American soil we have the opportunity to
achieve all the great dreams, all the great resolves,
all the promises of human dignity which are so of-
ten stifled and destroyed in the Old World.
ONE night in the spring of the year, when seed in the earth
breaks sharp through the crust, I left my bed quietly, locked
the door, and walked into the night. The rain a full-bodied,
lusty rain, driven by a furious wind beat hard against the
pavement, formed into rivulets, and flowed down slopes into
the gutter. It slashed at the tops of trees and beat down the
saplings and young shoots till they seemed to become one
with the earth.
It was past midnight as I walked, drenched, in old clothes
and old shoes. Sleep? I was beyond sleep. For days now some-
thing had been boiling and churning within me, seeking to
come through. Solitude wouldn't bring it out, nor long walks
in the country. Meditation in the back pew of a church didn't
help. It was in the nature of things that the inner storm would
subside only in the atmosphere of a storm outside. There was
no other way of quieting me down.
I had no idea where I was going. I remember only that my
head was bent to break the fury of the rain against my face.
I kept staring at my feet, watching first one then the other
shoe splash into a puddle and pull out, dripping, and ever be-
4 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
fore me the dark pavement, sleek and glistening with the
spring rain. It was a warm rain, a lush, fertile rain, holding
within it the magic to germinate whatever wanted to sprout.
Taxis passed, splashing New York's mud and water on me,
I walked for a long, long time. Eventually my feet led me to
the dock area of New York's West Side.
I stopped under a trestle and leaned against one of the sup-
ports. Then I shook my head and body like a poodle in from
the rain. Up the road was an all-night diner. I dug my hands
back into my pockets, bent my head, and began to cross to the
other side. A car skidded to a stop in front of me. There was
no splash, no sounding of the horn, no swearing from an irate
driver. I halted when someone flashed on a light.
"Police/ 7 I thought to myself, and stood there, the glare
full on my face. I was blinded, and I knew I must have looked
silly, with water running down me on all sides, down my
neck, under my shirt, into my socks. It's the most carefree
feeling in the world if the rain is warm.
The man behind the wheel rolled down the car window to
see me better. I stared into the flashlight and I think I smiled
a bit. "Take a good look," I thought. "I haven't done any-
thing yet!" After a moment the flash went out, the window
was rolled up, and the car vanished. I crossed to the diner,
shook myself at the door, entered, and sat on a stool.
"Coffee!" I said.
"Nice night for ducks," the man behind the counter said.
He was tall and gaunt, in his early forties: his long-jawed face
was broken into a thousand premature wrinkles. They were
especially thick around his deep-set eyes.
"Coffee!" I repeated.
I caught my hair in a scalp-lock and squeezed it like a mop
to keep the rainwater from dripping into my coffee. Then I
squeezed my collar and cuffs because rivulets of water were
flooding the counter. The counterman looked on. The coffee
felt good to my throat, like a hot egg-nog spiked with old rum.
But it was making me too drowsy, so I put down a coin.
The Tree Bears Fruit 5
"Thanks/' the man said.
I felt the pelting of the rain grow stronger as I approached
the docks and came nearer the waters of the Hudson. The
Jersey shore was invisible. I could see scarcely fifty feet ahead
of me. There was no sound except the fury of the rain beating
down on the ships and tugboats tied to the piers, striking their
metal sides in a soft, purring staccato.
The rain seemed to bring out the myriad odors of the water-
front, stirring up what had been pulverized under the wheels
of trucks and stevedores' boots. As I walked, there was the
fetid smell first of oil, then of tar, and then the pungent odor
of camphor. I moved along the dark, silent, wharves resting
now against a hawser post, now against the walls of a battered
building, or leaning against the soft yet unyielding piles of
merchandise covered with grease-soaked tarpaulins. I stared
fixedly at the deep, dark waters, at what lay beyond them. As
I walked, hunched over, I strained my eyes to look into the
impenetrable darkness, for no reason I could give. Indeed, I
had no reason for coming to this lonely spot, save that my feet
had led me here.
A ferry whistle came deep from the depths of the mist, as
if from a ghost ship: a long, haunting, lonesome wail that was
like the bleating of a lamb lost deep in a forest. It made the
night lonelier. I stood by, listening and watching for the ferry.
Finally it emerged, looming out of the dark, its lights like
misty globules, growing larger and more massive as it eased
into its berth. There was a grind of rising gates, and then half
a dozen figures emerged, shapeless as in a dream, and after
them, truck after truck rumbled into the night.
BIRTH
THE mental numbness left me gradually, and my mind went
back through the years to a night in April 1921 when the
O CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
ship that brought my parents, my two brothers and me to the
New World had docked not so far from this very pier. What
had happened since then was nothing short of a miracle, but
because it happened in a land of everyday miracles, few took
notice.
I was then a gawky boy of twelve, with six English words in
my vocabulary: "Yes," "no," "hot dog/ 7 "ice cream" the last
four picked up from the son of a returning missionary aboard
the Meghali Hellas, which had left the Hellespont a month
before it anchored here. I was born of Armenian parents in
Alexandropolis, Greece, in 1909. My first twelve years were
spent in a world wracked by war and violence. There was the
first Balkan War, and the second Balkan War, then World
War I, which really began as a Balkan clash and spread far
beyond the boundaries of the Balkans.
The cruelest war was that waged by the Turk against the
defenseless Christians of the Near East. The Armenians, the
most defenseless because they had no government to raise its
voice in protest, suffered most. One million were martyred.
The number of maimed and orphaned no one knew. Their
bleached bones stretched from Turkey to what are now the
Syrian and Iraqi deserts. The River Euphrates ran red with
their blood. No one knows the number in our family and
among our friends who were massacred or driven by the Turk
to suicide. Turkish officials wallowed in stolen wealth wealth
that later helped Kemal Ataturk finance his army and dictator-
ship. Providentially, the American Near East Relief and Red
Cross came to the rescue of those who survived this Turkish
genocide. Every Armenian today feels eternally grateful to
them, and to all of America.
That painful Old World chapter closed when I began a new
life in a New World. All that we had dreamed of before com-
ing here now came true. On our arrival in 1921, father bought
a home in Mineola, Long Island. In its cramped backyard we
had a garden, raised chickens, and kept innumerable pets,
which multiplied with such fecundity that father would ex-
The Tree Bears Fruit 7
claim: ''What a rich country this is. Even the animals are in
mass production here!"
Twenty miles removed from the "nationality islands'' of
New York, I grew up much as any American boy. I joined the
Boy Scouts and the Order of DeMolay. I attended church, I
fought with school bullies, I earned spending money by selling
subscriptions to the Saturday Evening Post and Ladies' Home
Journal. The first week after our arrival, I was enrolled in the
third grade of the Mineola grammar school, and never failed
a course until I reached algebra. I made the track, football,
baseball, and debating teams, and spoke enthusiastically on
brotherhood and Americanism.
In this wholesome, small-town atmosphere (Mineola's pop-
ulation was then 5,600) I lived at peace with Protestant,
Catholic, and Jew; Democrat and Republican; Anglo-Saxon,
old-line American, and European. Our family was accepted
into this ail-American community. Native-bora Americans
were my playmates and my teachers from the outset.
These were the main influences upon me in my youth, and
this the environment in which I was molded as an American.
My idealism my conception of freedom, democracy, toler-
ance, the "American Way" was shaped in this atmosphere
for eleven idyllic years, till the end of my college days. The
Communists would disdainfully call this bourgeois. But such
is my background in the land of my adoption. By November
1926 my parents had become American citizens. We cele-
brated with a feast the eating of which lasted four hours.
Today, Father is eight years past the three score and ten
mark, and still carries on a small import-export business.
Patriarch of the household, he has become an excellent cook,
especially of difficult-to-make, easy-to-eat Armenian pastries.
Mother, while she'll never admit it, is approaching the same
milestone, and still does her own housework. But despite that
honorable mark, she's still fond of hats made from the multi-
colored plumage shed by the family parrot. She has been col-
lecting and distributing Polly's feathers for twenty-five years.
8 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
My parents have aged gracefully, and the faces of both are
lined with life's labor. They are in good health, and ruggedly
Republican. They consider Herbert Hoover the greatest living
American, and will defend him with their last breath. This
loyalty may be due to the fact that Father bears a startling
resemblance to the Republican statesman. Actually, the rea-
son is more pragmatic than ideological, at least in my father's
case. While Father never speculated in stocks, and lost noth-
ing during the disastrous Hoover regime, he suffered when
Roosevelt devaluated the dollar to fifty-nine cents, comparably
reducing its purchasing power abroad. Being an importer of
food delicacies, Father lost forty-one cents out of every dollar.
He never recovered from the blow, financially or psychologi-
cally.
Mother, out of loyalty, joined Father on the Republican
bandwagon. As soon as they were entitled to vote, in 1926,
they began to vote Republican, and have clung to the GOP
like a Bulgarian peasant to his ploughing-bull. They are char-
ter diehards, the equal of any old-line Anglo-Saxon Republi-
cans and proud of it. These are my parents. You must know
them in order to know me, for as it is said in the Old World,
the first-born son mirrors his parents.
My brothers, John and Steven, three and nine years my
junior, have grown into comfortable, fairly prosperous middle-
class conservatives. John is an accountant with a public-utility
firm. Steven is a successful attorney, and has been elected to
public office. Both served in the armed forces. They live and
work in or near Mineola. Both are loved and respected.
GROWTH
I AM the rebel of the household.
I might have followed the same unruffled path except for an
incident in 1933 which was so violent, and so unprecedented
The Tree Bears Fruit 9
in American history, that it determined for me the course of
my life. This was the murder of my archbishop, Leon Tourian,
at the foot of the altar of the Armenian Holy Cross Church in
New York on Christmas Sunday, 19 3 3. 1 He was killed by as-
sassins who slashed with a butcher knife at the groin of the
Archbishop as he led the Christmas processional The mur-
derers caught and convicted proved to be members of an
Armenian political terrorist group called Dashnag, which car-
ried its Old World feuds to our shores.
My hatred for organized evil began with the murder of this
innocent servant of God who had been my priest and a be-
loved family friend. It was my personal awakening. The mur-
der, too, was the first sign of how potently Old World hatreds
had infiltrated into an America that I had considered impervi-
ous to them.
There was another factor determining my future. This was
the depression of the early 1930's, which I witnessed at first
hand while hitch-hiking across the country. It catapulted me
into a world of stark realities. At one stroke, my thinking was
revolutionized. I was ripped away from the idyllic isolationism
of Mineola, the world of see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil
in which I had been reared. I began to question that world.
I began to probe into its broken promises.
I tramped with the bonus marchers, ate slops with them,
and slept in their miserable shacks on the Potomac. In my in-
dignation I wrote a long article in the Mineola Sun. What else
could I do? Hitch-hiking across the country, I saw two young
men in St. Louis attack each other with knives over a loaf of
bread. I saw others cross the continent in boxcars, looking for
work. On lower Cherry Street in Kansas City, Missouri, I saw
women forced to scrape a living by offering themselves for
twenty-five cents a visit. On another street the price was fif-
teen cents.
I saw breadlines. The last breadline I had seen was as a child
of nine in Sofia, Bulgaria, in the winter of 1918. The memory
1 The incident as described in detail in Under Cover, pp. 15-16, 20.
10 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
of it! The queue was opposite our home, in front of a bakery.
Old men and women the young men were either at the
front, in hospitals, or dead waited for hours under a driving
snow for a tin of hot stew and a stale crust of bread. Fifteen
years later I saw the same sight in the United States. What
was happening to America? I asked in this proverbial land of
plenty. I gathered extensive notes and photographs to write
a book, but never did so. Instead fresh out of college
I tramped the streets, and visited and revisited the employ-
ment agencies, as did twelve million others, looking for a job.
I returned briefly to Mineola, but I knew I had outgrown
it. I went to New York City, where I worked and lived, for a
time supporting myself on five dollars a week as a newspaper
reporter, sleeping in a cold-water skylighted room and eating
fifteen-cent meals at Bernarr Macfadden's Pennyteria. What I
had seen and felt made me what some might call a radical.
An American radical, yes, and somewhat of a reformer; but a
revolutionist, a Communist, or a fanatic agitator against the
American way of life, never. I am happy now that my faith in
democracy was so deeply rooted that I took no stock of any
promises other than those of my adopted country. Later, it
pained me to read of those native-born Americans who, hav-
ing devoted themselves passionately to Communist pursuits,
recanted publicly amid loud, commercialized fanfare.
New York helped complete my education in the world of
realities. Here were the headquarters of the German-American
Bund and the equally notorious Christian Front. New York
was a symbol of an America that was being corrupted daily by
the same cancers that had made a living graveyard of most of
Europe. It was in New York that I saw murder, flop-houses,
Fascism, Communism. In New York I undertook my under-
cover investigations for Fortune magazine investigations that
led ultimately to the writing of my first book. New York
proved a grim tutor.
And I saw that those evils of Europe which my parents
came here to avoid were now following us to our new home,
The Tree Bears Fruit 11
like rodents trailing in the shadows. To a sensitive, idealistic,
religious, immigrant-born youth, the realization was shocking
and disillusioning beyond words. Under Cover was the result
of my labors to expose those who were betraying our democ-
racy.
RESOLVE
THESE were the thoughts that came to me as I faced the
water, oblivious to the rain, and the conflict of the Old and
the New Worlds raged inside me. I saw myself as an indi-
vidual product of that conflict and America as the mass
product. I saw my adopted country as a treasure house of the
good that is latent in all men. I saw America, too, as a sanc-
tuary for those of us who are its immigrants. Our roots, trans-
planted from Europe, bear fruit here. On free American soil
we have the opportunity to achieve all the great dreams, all
the great resolves, all the promises of human dignity which
are so often stifled and destroyed in the Old World. Here the
immigrant becomes an American.
The compulsion to stare into the depths of the blackness
offshore held me. Yet the more I gazed, unseeing, the more
swiftly the panorama of my life unfolded, the more calm I was
growing. My restlessness was slowly being replaced by a curi-
ous sense of quietude, the turbulence of the inner storm by
the peace of mind that comes from self-understanding. Out
of the rain-swept mists, stretching, it seemed to me, to the
very shores of Europe, came the persuasion, the conviction
whatever one may call it that I must leave my adopted coun-
try and return to the regions of my childhood; that I must
seek the ancient earth upon which I had been born.
As this decision crystalized, a strange thing happened. I ex-
perienced a great serenity, a great inner peace, a clarity of
vision unclouded by doubt and uncertainty. This sense of well-
12 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
being grew until I felt enveloped by a warm, comforting glow.
I was suffused by a surge of strength and what seemed to be
inspired decision.
A moment ago the past had unfolded: now the adventurous
future beckoned. I resolved to go on an extended odyssey to
my birthplace, to the distant places of the Middle East, to
those strange and secret corners of the Old World which are
outside the paths of the casual visitor.
I would attempt to interpret the Old World to the New.
By adopting the techniques I had used in Under Cover I
would study the forces and intrigues at work against us. As a
product of the Old World, I felt I could gain the confidence
of those with whom I would talk and live. I would then re-
turn to tell what I had seen and learned. Whatever lesson was
to be gained from my experiences and from the comparison
between the two worlds would be my own way, in these tur-
bulent and perilous postwar years, of expressing my gratitude
to America. This I had sought to do during the war years by
exposing the enemies of my country.
And standing there in the rain, it came to me that almost
everything that had happened in my life until this day the
curious, sometimes fantastic experiences I had had might all
have been designed to prepare me for this mission, this investi-
gation of the forces of hatred festering below the surface from
London to Cairo to Damascus.
Now the reaction set in. I felt cold. My watersoaked clothes
were suddenly unbearable. I had to go home, to rest, to sleep.
I turned up my coat collar and began to walk away from the
river, my head buried in my topcoat. An automobile sounded
noisily behind me.
"Hey, you!"
It was a police patrol car. Once again a flashlight played over
me, head to foot.
"What are you doing at the docks at this hour?" the man at
the wheel asked.
The Tree Bears Fruit 13
"Thinking. I think better when it's raining."
Silence. Then a voice from his companion. "The guy must
be batty."
"What are you thinking about?" the driver asked.
"About going abroad. Fm going there."
"Don't try to swim it," his companion said.
"You work at anything?" the driver asked.
"I'm a writer."
"A reporter? What paper?" asked the second man challeng-
ingly.
"An author," I said.
"Got anything to identify you?" the driver asked.
I handed him my wallet. "You'll find all my papers there,"
I said. "Driver's license, draft card, all you need."
The two put their heads together, passed my papers be-
tween them, and the driver handed them back neatly.
"OK, bud," he said, passing judgment noncommittally in
the inimitable fashion of police officers. "Better get into some
dry clothes."
In the subway train I attempted to sit down but chills ran
up and down my spine. I stood up all the way to my station.
When I finally reached home I pulled off my waterlogged
shoes and left them at the door. I took off my socks and held
them by their tops between the fingers of my left hand. With
my right, I opened the door. My wet feet marked the rug as I
tiptoed toward the bathroom. There I threw all my clothes in
a heap in one end of the tub and stood under a scalding
shower. As the first rays of the sun slipped into the bedroom
I pulled the covers over me and fell into a dreamless sleep.
When I awoke, it was midnight. I rolled over, and slept peace-
fully until the dawn of the next day.
BOOK ONE
(CHAPTER I)
LONDON: THE ODYSSEY BEGINS
Inherent in the doctrine of National-Socialism [is]
the spirit of humanity. . . . Fascism has the capac-
ity to love. . . . Tolerance [is the] soapy water of
humanity.
Captain Robert Gordon-Canning
"We are here this afternoon to greet Captain Can-
ning heartily. He is our distinguished guest, and a
sincere friend to our people. We immensely thank
him for his efforts. . . ."
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
MY BUS rumbled past closely built old homes and bombed-
out buildings. Between them were empty lots, entirely gutted.
The aftermath of war lay upon London, this January day in
1948, like a tattered blanket Buildings were unpainted, the
plumbing gone, the furniture creaky. To an American accus-
tomed to lush advertising, the billboards, too, appeared
strange. They mirrored the plight of London three full years
after the end of the war.
GARMENTS MADE LARGE OR SMALLER. SUITS, OVERCOATS,
COSTUMES TURNED.
WASTE PAPER IS STILL VITAL. ARE YOU SAVING YOURS?
And then one poster that interested me particularly read:
18 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
If You Are between 18 and 281
If You Want a Man's Job
If You Want to Earn 20 a Month and All Found
Get into a Crack Force The PALESTINE POLICE FORCE!
This was only four months before the British mandate over
Palestine was to end and Palestine was to be partitioned be-
tween Arab and Jew according to the United Nations deci-
sion. Why, then, were the British continuing to recruit Pales-
tinian police?
"You will see those all over London/' someone behind me
said.
I recognized an English couple who had been fellow pas-
sengers on the plane that brought me from New York to Lon-
don.
"Well/' I said> greeting them, "I never expected to find
London as run-down as this."
"Oh, everything's been leveled off buildings as well as so-
ciety/' the man said. "The war and what's happened since
have driven us to accept the equalities of Socialism. Some like
it, others will never be reconciled to it."
"Do you think Communism or Fascism will follow Social-
ism?" I asked.
He laughed. "No, most of us aren't so worried about 'isms'
as you are in the States. Perhaps it's because we have so little
to lose materially. You Yankees are afraid because you have so
much of everything. You're like the man with a full granary
who is afraid of thieves and hires bodyguards. We have no
such fears."
UNDER COVER IN LONDON
His last words remained with me as I returned to my hotel,
the Cumberland, where I had a room overlooking Hyde Park,
Britain's historic forum for free speech. Would he be so casual
London: The Odyssey Begins 19
about "isms/' I wondered, if he knew to what extent democ-
racy's enemies were still active? I spent my first night review-
ing my plans and taking inventory of what I had brought with
me. There were four cameras (two were later stolen); dozens
of packs of film, scores of names and addresses; and quantities
of such delectable items (which were luxuries then) as rice,
tongue, butter, and bacon, destined as my personal gifts to
some of London's top political racketeers and hate specialists.
I knew they would welcome me not as John Roy Carlson,
but in the guise I had chosen for myself.
I had not embarked on my overseas adventure without full
preparation. My experiences in Under Cover and The Plotters
had taught me that without careful planning my investigations
would not only end in disaster but might lead to a cracked
skull and worse.
In Under Cover I posed as George Pagnanelli, an American
of Italian descent, no better than the hoodlums he traveled
with, in order to infiltrate into the American Nazi bund and
be accepted as a trusted worker among our native merchants
of hate. In The Plotters I was Robert Thompson, Jr., a dis-
illusioned World War II veteran who was eager to join with
those Communists, preachers of bigotry, and political thugs
who preyed on veterans. When the first copy of Under Cover
appeared in 1943, George Pagnanelli vanished. When I turned
in the finished manuscript of The Plotters in 1946, Robert
Thompson, Jr., followed him.
But Fascism and Communism in America were only part of
the over-all world picture. The exposure of the enemies within
our gates could only be the beginning of my work. I also
wanted to keep in touch with hate movements abroad, and so
I invented still another character and established him in this
field. I created "Charles L. Morey" and it was as Charles
Morey that I now began my undercover work in London.
(Later, when I would reach the Middle East, I knew I would
have to kill off Morey as I had Pagnanelli and Thompson.
No native-born white American Protestant which was what
20 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
Morey was supposed to be would be accepted as a confidant
by the Moslem world. )
I gave considerable thought to the character and profession
Fd assume as Morey. I had grown older since my early experi-
ences in undercover work, and had put on weight. A stranger
could easily take me for a typical well-fed American business-
man. That is exactly the character I assumed.
I invented a business for myself sales manager of the
Homestead Farm Appliance Corporation, with offices and
plant in St. John, Indiana. As Charles Morey I began as early
as 1945 a wide correspondence with every British hate-monger
and anti-democrat I read or heard about. There is of course no
Homestead Farm Appliance Corporation. I had never been to
St. John, but a trusted friend lived there and he forwarded all
letters addressed to me.
To give myself prestige, I issued a series of mimeographed
leaflets a technique I'd successfully followed in Under Cover
with such intriguing titles as "The American Nationalist
Decade." I praised Spain as the "European bulwark against
Communism/' My headlines screamed: "The Nationalist
Flame Is Burning at Home and Abroad/' thus rallying to
my banner the super-patriots abroad. I chastised "Fair Deal
Harry" and ranted against the "shackles of Communist Wash-
ington/' I also founded the "Federation Against Communism
American Section/' a simon-pure letterhead organization
with invented names as officers. I wrote impressively of sub-
sidizing nationalist organizations throughout the world from
the limitless funds I either possessed or was capable of raising.
(As Morey, in short, I represented myself as a one-man Mar-
shall Plan, dedicated to financing the resurgence of hate move-
ments and the growth of authoritarian ideology) . The combi-
nation of letterhead, important-sounding leaflets, and dollar
appeal gained the confidence of every international bigot to
whom I wrote.
Now, in my hotel room, I looked over the names and ad-
dresses of those with whom I'd developed -paper friendships.
London: The Odyssey Begins 21
They were the men and women I wanted to meet face to face
before going on to the Middle East. I wanted to learn then
methods; discover their associations with those in our lunatic
fringe at home and with those promoting evil in the corner of
the world to which I was going; and above all, to learn how
both were plotting together to revive the flames they hoped
would consume democracy.
Before me was a letter I had received from Victor C. Bur-
gess, a long-time member of the BUF British Union of
Fascists. As Charles L. Morey, I had written Burgess follow-
ing the tip of an American soldier who had seen him selling
the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and similar literature on
London's streets. Burgess's letter read:
... I am rather hoping that I can find a number of Na-
tional Socialist friends in various countries, who will give me
an opportunity of ousting the Jews from some of the Export
trade. . . . Think it over, and let me know. In the meantime
write again soon, and tell me the latest news of the American
National Front. I hope that you are slaughtering as many
Jews as we seem to be doing in Palestine. All the best,
Yours in Service,
V. C. Burgess
I made my first visit in London to him, unannounced, bear-
ing my gifts of food and cigarettes. I found a man of twenty-
eight, with watery blue eyes and long brown hair slicked back.
His face was long and coarse; he was dressed in gray trousers,
gray shirt, and a khaki jacket. His "'export" office proved to be
a ramshackle hallway room, with a battered desk and a wooden
box for a chair. Next door was a room for his wife and two
children. As one of the children began to cry, Burgess shouted
from the box on which he was sitting:
"Shut up, Ralph. Damn that boy. Keep him quiet, Olive.
Close the door, Olive. Damn it, CLOSE THAT DOOR!"
Before the door slammed I glanced inside. The room was
22 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
tiny, semidark, in undescribable disorder. One child, nude ex-
cept for a shirt, was crawling on the floor. The other was in a
crib composed of boards against the wall, with more boards
above the first, giving the appearance of twin coffins. Both
children now broke into a howl, disturbing the fuehrer who
was entertaining a guest from the USA.
"Olive!" Burgess shouted again. "Will you get them some-
thing to eat! "
After this he turned to me. He was very busy now, he said,
co-ordinating the resurgent activity of members of former
BUF units who had joined organizations such as the Sons of
St. George in Manchester, British Workers' Party for National
Unity in Bristol, and Imperial Defence League in Derby.
"My own outfit is the Union of British Freedom/' he said.
"I kept the initials of the old BUF." He published a hate
sheet, Unity, for "Britain, King and People." It was a counter-
part of Gerald L. K. Smith's publication, The Cross and the
Flag, in the States.
"One of the boys has an outdoor meeting today. Want to
come?"
"I'd be delighted," I said. "I'd like to see you fellows at
work."
We walked to a side street near Victoria Park to hear one
of London's leading rabble-rousers, Jeffrey Hamm. An ex-BUF
member, now head of the British League of Ex-Service Men
and Women, Hamm was haranguing a crowd of nearly a thou-
sand persons. They were not a pretty sight. As Burgess stepped
away for a moment to talk to a friend, I climbed on a door-
step and focused my camera to take an over-all picture of the
crowd and the speaker. But a dozen or more listeners began to
glare at me. I promptly closed my camera began frantically
applauding and cheering Hamm. It was too late.
In twos and threes men began to move toward me. Their
plan, as I knew from experience, was undoubtedly to bottle
me up in the doorway, then push me back into the hallway for
a beating. I caught them off guard by walking directly through
London: The Odyssey Begins 23
their ranks and rejoining the crowd, hoping to lose myself in
it. But I was being surrounded. In whatever direction I moved,
a wall of three or four thugs immediately blocked my way.
The circles grew smaller, the avenue of escape smaller.
Any display of panic would have proved my undoing. In
front of me a powerfully built man who looked like a steve-
dore turned his head slightly and nodded, at the same time
backing a step toward me. Behind me, I sensed two others
move closer. The man in front suddenly wheeled his bulky
body around and lurched against me, trying to jab his elbow
into my stomach. An instinctive reaction would have been to
step backward, but from the corner of my eye I had seen one
of the men behind me doubled over. I would have fallen over
him and, while on the ground, been kicked in the groin. It
was an old Bundist trick. Chances of being heard above the
roaring mob were practically nil. As I saw the elbow lunge
viciously, I twisted my body at the waist and pivoted. The el-
bow missed. Frustrated, my assailant turned around.
"What you got there?" he growled, and grabbed my camera.
Someone behind seized my arm. I tried to pull away. Dimly
I heard: "Throw him out! Give it to him! He's a Jew!" Cries
rose all around me.
Then, somehow, in the swimming faces of the closing
crowd, I saw Burgess.
"Burgess! Tell them I'm okay!" I yelled desperately.
I heard Burgess say: "I know him. Ldt 'im go."
The men fell back. The burly man returned my camera,
then one by one they came up and apologized sheepishly.
"We were moving in on you," one said.
"We had you wrong, friend. We thought you were a bloody
Jew."
"I can tell he was no Jew. He didn't make a run for it,"
someone else said.
Still breathing hard, but now surrounded by a loyal body-
guard, I listened to Jeffrey Hamm. He was tall and stocky,
with a square face and blond hair. A ferocious and devastating
24 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
speaker, Hamm was rated second only to Sir Oswald Mosley, 1
who was in retirement on his farm after being released from
custody.
"Traitor Churchill, Traitor Attlee . . . England has been
sold down the river to America by Traitor Baruch. . . . Brit-
ain First, England for the Englishmen . . . The dirty Jews,
those miserable creatures crawling around London."
This sort of baiting delighted the crowd. They roared them-
selves hoarse. Somebody yelled: "It's time we wiped them
out!"
"P J! P J!" some one in the crowd began to chant.
"What does P J stand for?" I asked Burgess.
"Perish Judah!" he said. "It's a good slogan."
"England is not without a leader/' Hamm was bellowing.
"It has a leader. A leader who was for Britain First, first, last,
and always. Our leader is the greatest living Englishman Sir
Oswald Mosley !"
A deep roar went up from the crowd and echoed across Vic-
toria Park.
"Mosley! Mosley! We want Mosley! We want Mosley!
Heil, Mosley!" All around hands were outstretched in the
Nazi salute. It was hard to believe that I was in London.
After the meeting I met Hamm, an educated, smooth-
speaking man of thirty-one, who had once taught English in
the Falkland Islands, We went to a pub together and drank
warm ale. He told me he had been interned in South Africa
during the war as dangerous to national security, and later
been allowed to join the British army. Hamm was curious
about "nationalism in America," how active our groups were,
and what had happened to Father Coughlin.
1 The notorious Mosley, former fuehrer of the British Union of Fas-
cists, studied the teachings of Fascism in Italy. Home Secretary James Chuter
Ede disclosed in the House of Commons that, according to the former
Italian ambassador in London, Count Dino Grandi, Mussolini had been
subsidizing the BUF at the rate of $250,000 a year. Mosley visited Germany
and conferred with Hitler. He is now active in the Union Movement, com-
posed largely of former BUF members.
London: The Odyssey Begins 25
"We'll do all right here/' he said. "It will take time, but
we'll come back as strong as we were before."
MR. RAMSAY AND MR. RANKIN
HAMM, to be sure, was a rabble-rouser, no more. But among
those whom I wanted to visit was an Englishman who worked
- on much higher levels. He was a Captain Robert Gordon-
Canning, formerly of the Royal Hussars, who had been in-
terned during the war for the same reason as Hamm. I had
first seen his name in a New York Times dispatch from Lon-
don reporting his purchase at auction of a huge granite bust of
Adolf Hitler, part of the former property of the German Em-
bassy, for 500. This was then equivalent to more than two
thousand dollars.
I had immediately written to Canning expressing my grati-
tude for his "act of personal integrity" in saving the priceless
bust from desecration. Presently I received a reply. After a few
choice words against the Jews, Canning wrote: "I bought the
bust of Adolf Hitler with a purpose! To challenge the Jews.
To prevent purchase by them. To return [it] to Germany at a
suitable time." Thus began a beautiful friendship, which bore
fruit when Canning put me in touch with the only member of
Parliament to be interned during the war for security reasons,
Archibald Henry Maule Ramsay. In due time I heard from
Ramsay, who prefaced his letter with the statement: "Com-
munism is Jewish in origin, design and purpose/' Charles L.
Morey promptly replied in appropriate terms. In another letter
Ramsay recommended the best addresses for patriotic litera-
ture. They were the fanatically anti-Catholic Alexander Rat-
cliffe, connected with the British Protestant League, and Ar-
nold Leese, veteran Jew-baiter and publisher of Jewish Ritual
Murder, which, like the Protocols, had served the Nazis as a
prime propaganda weapon.
26 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
Ramsay was living in London, and I set out to see him be-
fore visiting Canning, who was at his farm some miles away.
I found Ramsay in a small inconspicuous hotel. He was an
unusually tall and gangling Scot, with a pronounced eagle
nose. This once honored member of His Majesty's Parliament
was now dressed in a frayed black suit and shoes that had seen
better days. He had a close-cropped mustache and thinning
hair. His deep-set brown eyes were settled in circles of wrin-
kles. He impressed me as austere and snobbish. His first ques-
tion to me was: "Have you met Tyler Kent in the States?"
He was referring to the former decoding-clerk of our Lon-
don Embassy, convicted of betraying the contents of cable-
grams exchanged between Churchill and Roosevelt to one
Anna WolkofE (a pro-Nazi woman of White Russian origin
living in London). Through her this vital information was to
be transmitted to Germany through Italian agents in London. 2
Ramsay was formerly one of the figures in the Nordic
League, at which William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw ), later
hanged as a traitor, had spoken. Ramsay warmed up as we
talked and proposed an interesting mission for me. Could I
possibly arrange with "a Representative like Mr. Rankin" to
cable him (Ramsay), and query whether he did not believe
World War II had been started by the Jews? This would give
Ramsay the opening to reply with a blast against the Jews. Ran-
kin would then insert the correspondence in the Congressional
Record, after which American patriots would distribute the
reprints by the thousands, free, under Rankin's Congressional
stamp.
I agreed to see Rankin on my return home.
2 Kent served five years of a seven-year sentence in English prisons. On
his return to the United States in 1945, Kent's cause was championed by
Merwin K. Hart of the National Economic Council; John O'Donnell, once
columnist for the Washington Times-Herald; John Rowland Snow, formerly
an assistant in Lawrence Dennis's office (in 1943 Dennis was indicted, with 29
others, for subversive activities but after a mistrial the indictment was dis-
missed); Gerald L. K. Smith, and others. All of these persons published book-
lets or articles protesting Kent's innocence.
London: The Odyssey Begins 27
"Will you also take a message to Tyler and his mother?"
Ramsay asked.
"Sure! Just write it down and I'll take it."
"I shouldn't put it in writing/' Ramsay said. "I shall tell you
later/'
He went on to rant against the Jews. "We're completely
under their domination here/'
We walked out of his hotel together. With his black bowler
and his umbrella Ramsay presented a dejected picture of aus-
terity and loneliness. He was now a jobless, frustrated ex-MP
living upon yesterday's ragged glory, such as it had been.
We parted, he to take a train at nearby Victoria Station, I
looking forward to meeting his friend the next day.
THE MAN WHO BOUGHT HITLER'S BUST
MEETING with Captain Robert Gordon-Canning proved far
more adventurous. As sales manager of the "Homestead Farm
Appliance Corporation," I knew I could expect an English
gentleman-farmer to ask me many questions. Next to ma-
chinery in general, I know least about farms, so it was with
some hesitation that I went to visit him at his farm in Sand-
wich. I was warmly welcomed and served a brandy, after
which we went out to inspect his land and stock. Canning had
inherited considerable property and was obviously wealthy.
He began to ask about American farms, seed, markets, ferti-
lizers, and sprayers. As we walked among his fine herds, he
asked about our dairy industry. If my answers were fantastic,
I'm sure Canning ascribed them to our American idiosyncra-
sies. It was a relief when the interrogation finally ceased and I
turned to study my host. He was a towering, well-proportioned
man, with a ruddy complexion. Much larger than normal, his
face was set in a large head with a bald dome, and gave him a
massive appearance. His eyes were blue, puffy, and encased in
28 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
deep wrinkles, but when he smiled they twinkled pleasantly.
His very long upper lip, heavy drawling voice, and full but
formless mouth gave the impression of a distant and self-
contained man.
"At first I took you for a journalist," Canning said. "But you
have a wide knowledge of farming and I see now that I was
wrong/'
Was he hiding his suspicions? I was not sure. But he talked
freely, and that was what counted.
"You're an energetic fellow to find your way about so easily
here. All you Americans are energetic. You're an odd people.
You believe in humanitarianism abroad, but lynch your Ne-
groes at home. The Jews, not your Negroes, are the ones to get
after/'
"You seem to know about us," I said.
"I once visited the States for Mosley," he confided, "to see
if American industrialists would help us fight Bolshevism/'
He had seen James True and Robert Edward Edmondson,
pioneer Hitler apologists once indicted for subversive ac-
tivities. Canning's mission in the early thirties had been a
failure. Father Coughlin would not see him, nor would Henry
Ford. "I had breakfast with Lammot du Pont. 3 He wasn't sym-
pathetic at all," Canning said. He then asked me what had
happened to the America First Committee, to the Silver
Shirts, and other organizations that had been active. I told
him they had all been "persecuted by the Jews," and Canning
said: "It was the same thing here."
We browsed around the fields and finally went into the
charming living-room of his farmhouse for tea. Canning grew
confidential. "I was at Mosley's wedding in Germany. Hitler
was there as a witness at the ceremony, you know. I used to
see Hitler in Munich and Berlin, and once had supper with
Goebbels. Hitler was a fine man, a charming man. If three
s Lammot and Irne du Pont both later were heavy contributors to the
National Economic Council. Its president, Merwm K. Hart, has developed
into a Jew-baiter and a chronic propagandist against democracy. See Under
Cover and The Plotters.
London: The Odyssey Begins 29
Hitlers had been allowed to rule the world in Germany,
Italy, and England we wouldn't be in the fix we are now,
because each would have understood the viewpoint of the
other. . . . Germany is bound to come back strong/' Can-
ning added.
He was an early member of the BUF, and in a booklet,
"The Spirit of Fascism/' he had written:
. . . The spirit of freedom runs right through the Fascist
State, and affords to rich and poor a guaranteed liberty to
proceed along the chosen road to life. . . . Inherent in the
doctrine of National-Socialism [is] the spirit of humanity. . . .
Only because of its immense humanity, only because of its
mystical craving for "absolute union" of the nation, does
Fascism proclaim its intolerance to those forces which prevent
the attainment of this spiritual urge. Fascism has the capacity
to love. . . . Tolerance [is the] soapy water of humanity.
This was the measure of the man who had bought Hitler's
bust.
We got around to the Jews. "If I were in Palestine, I'd give
my men twenty-four hours to do with the Jews as they wished.
Silly humanitarianism/' he said as an afterthought.
Canning said he knew Anna Wolkoff, friend of Tyler Kent.
Canning also revealed that he was financing a book on Hitler's
life. "Couriers" were bringing material direct from Munich
and returning with instructions. As I was leaving, Canning
said: "Will you mail these letters for me from London?"
"Of course."
We parted warm friends and agreed to meet again in his
London apartment. On the train to London without too
many qualms of conscience I opened a letter he had ad-
dressed to Professor S. F. Darwin-Fox. Later, in the quiet of my
hotel room, I photographed, sealed, then mailed the letter.
Canning had written: "I am surprised that a thousand Jews
have not been hanged in London during the last forty-eight
SO CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
hours. 4 There can be no doubt of us being a 'slave race' today."
I dined twice with Canning at his apartment in Cadogan
Square, London. These were highly instructive meetings. For
this man who bought Hitler's bust, and who on the basis of
his writings might be dismissed as a crackpot, permitted his
apartment to be used as a meeting-place by Arabs working in
London. Canning told me he was a close friend of Abdul
Rahman Azzam Pasha, the Jew-baiting secretary-general of the
Arab League. He then showed me photographs taken with
Abd el Krim, the Moroccan rebel leader ("back in the twen-
ties I tried to make peace between the French and the
Arabs"), and with other high Arab personalities. A prize in
his collection was one taken with the Grand Mufti of Jerusa-
lem. Canning had written a pamphlet, "Arab or Jew," in
which he reprinted the introduction the Mufti had given him
at a dinner sponsored in Canning's honor by the Moslem Su-
preme Council in Jerusalem on November 5, 1929. This was
the time of the bloody Palestine riots, when the Mufti gangs
staged pogroms against Palestine's Jews. Said the Mufti then:
"We are here this afternoon to greet Captain Canning
heartily. He is our distinguished guest, and a sincere friend to
our people. We immensely thank him for his efforts he has
been unceasingly exerting in support of our cause. . . . The
Arabs in this country request all their British friends, and our
distinguished guest, Captain Canning, is of the best of them,
to be so good enough as to let the noble British people know
the real facts in this country."
"I am one of the few Englishmen the Arabs trust com-
pletely," Canning said proudly, caressing the album containing
the photograph of himself with the Mufti and others.
One night, when I knew Canning had invited a group of
Arab leaders to his home, I dropped in casually at suppertime.
4 This was in reference to a series of anti-Semitic outbreaks in London,
Liverpool, Manchester, and other cities, growing out of Jewish reprisals
against the British in Palestine.
London: The Odyssey Begins 31
Canning greeted me at the door and took me into an ante-
room. "I'd like to invite you to stay/' he said, apologetically.
"I know you're all right, but my guests are suspicious of all
Americans/*
A few days later he suggested:
"Why don't you see Izzed-een Shawa Bey? He's a man you
ought to know. When you see him, give him my regards."
IZZED-EEN SHAWA BEY
I WAS delighted. I hurried to the address Canning gave me.
It was a small, quiet apartment house of dark brownstone at
76 Eaton Square, in the exclusive West End section of Lon-
don. I found myself in a dark, narrow hallway. I studied the
names under the mailboxes: no Izzed-een Shawa Bey was
listed. Acting on a hunch, I knocked on the last door in the
hallway, which had no nameplate attached. After a long wait,
I knocked again, vigorously, and then shook the handle noisily.
The door was finally opened by a heavy-set young Arab who
told me promptly that Shawa Bey was out.
"I can hear him talking inside," I said, bluffing. "I must see
him at once."
The door was closed in my face and I heard a rapid-fire
exchange in Arabic. Then it opened again and I was ushered
into a semidarkened room. Swarthy young Arabs prowled
about, escorting athletic young Englishmen into side rooms in
an atmosphere of almost melodramatic conspiracy. Suddenly a
door opened and an intense man in his thirties, with piercing
black eyes and short black mustache, stepped out instinc-
tively I knew it must be Shawa Bey accompanied by a tall,
blond Englishman. The two shook hands briskly and the Eng-
lishman left. Shawa Bey turned to me.
"Come with me," he said curtly. I followed him into an
office and he closed the door carefully after me.
Sitting across his desk, I was astonished to see that Shawa
32 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
Bey, save for his mustache, looked more like me than I did.
Suddenly it flashed through my mind that if I were to raise a
mustache and acquire a deep tan, I should have no difficulty
passing for an Arab. I looked at Shawa Bey. How many British
mercenaries was he hiring? And on what conditions? When
were they to enter Palestine? By what route? It was too risky
to ask.
"Cigarettes?" I offered him my pack of Luckies.
"I prefer mine to your American brands. I never change/'
His English was perfect. For a full minute Shawa Bey studied
me without a word. "What's your nationality, your back-
ground?" he snapped.
"American, partly of French ancestry/'
"What are you, a journalist?" He gave me a withering look.
I laid my calling-card on the desk. "I'm a salesman of farm
machinery. I'm in England on business. Captain Gordon-
Canning suggested I should drop in on you. He sends you his
greetings/ 7
"That is different," Shawa Bey said, unfreezing a little.
"Canning is a very good friend. So you are from America!"
he mused. "I've been to the States. You know Habib Katibah, 5
of course." I nodded. "Very well," I said. Shawa Bey began to
talk more freely. "The Jews think America is going to help
them in Palestine but she won't because there's too much
feeling against the Jews in the States. The Arabs are well
armed and well equipped. Many have been infiltrating into
Jewish territory. We are confident of winning."
"I plan to go to Palestine myself," I said. "I want to be
there for the Arab victory."
"I wouldn't go now/' Shawa Bey remarked. "I'd go a little
later. Once the war starts, it won't take us long." We dis-
cussed some of the persons I'd met so far. "I've known Cap-
tain Canning for a long time," he said. "He has helped the
Arab cause. Another good friend of the Arabs is Miss Frances
Newton. She has been of great assistance."
5 Habib Ibrahim Katibah, whose activities are discussed in Chapter II.
London: The Odyssey Begins 33
I asked about the Mufti.
"He's in good health. He's in Cairo now. He goes back and
forth between Cairo and Damascus. He has headquarters
everywhere in the Middle East." Shawa Bey paused. "These
next months are very important. The Jews will learn that
quickly."
I rose to go. In the outer room, young British veterans of
World War II in civilian dress were waiting to be interviewed.
Within a few months I was to see them fighting and dying
for the Arab cause under Arab names. I was to see them buried
in unknown graves, in Moslem cemeteries, unhonored and
unsung. I was to see them as prisoners of war in Israel. Izzed-
een Shawa Bey rose to his feet.
"Good-bye/' he said. "We might meet again in Egypt or
Palestine."
If we did, I hoped he wouldn't recognize me!
Shawa Bey had mentioned the name of Miss Frances E.
Newton. I looked her up and called upon her immediately.
She lived near Canning.
"Who are you?" she asked. She wore a white patch over one
eye.
"A friend of Gordon-Canning and of Izzed-een Shawa Bey."
"Any friend of theirs is a friend of mine," Miss Newton
said.
She was a plump, elderly woman. She told me she had lived
in Jerusalem, and was a Dame of the Order of St. John of Je-
rusalem. She was also secretary of the Anglo-Arab Friendship
Society. Its brochure, "The Truth about the Mufti," was a
complete exoneration of the Mufti, and cited him for his
"integrity and leadership," completely glossing over his role
as the leading Arab Nazi. 6 A signer of the brochure was "Y.
Bandek, Arab Liaison." Later, Yusif Bandek became an active
Arab propagandist in the United States, working closely with
6 The Mufti's role as a war criminal is discussed in Chapter XXII.
34 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
Merwin K. Hart and Hart's friend, Vice-Admiral C. S. Free-
man. 7
Miss Newton was collecting funds for a new group she had
organized, British Aid for Distressed Palestine Arabs. Among
the patrons was Azzani Pasha, the Arab League's mastermind.
I had only had a glimpse of Miss Newton, but that served
its purpose. It was only later, after I had been to the Middle
East, that I began to understand the role played by these men
and women.
ROAST DUCK AND ROASTED JEWS AT CANNING'S
ON THE eve of Lincoln's Birthday, Canning invited me to
dinner to meet some of his friends. We had become very-
friendly, especially after I had sent the gourmet a pound of
long-grain rice, then unobtainable in London. Other guests
were Ramsay, Miss Newton, a friend of Anna Wolkoff named
Enid Riddell, and Admiral Sir Barry Domville, who before
his retirement had once been Heinrich Himmler's guest in
Germany, and later was interned during the war.
The roast duck Canning served was delicious. His egg cro-
quettes were marvelous. The fruit pudding with butter-rum
sauce I've never had duplicated anywhere. We had wine, and
splendid coffee, always rare in Britain. Canning was a gen-
erous host. I tried to be an appreciative guest. London was
aflame over terroristic activities in Palestine and we were at
no loss for conversation. Between mouthfuls, the Jew was our
7 See Appendix.
The facing page reproduces a postwar brochure issued after the
Mufti's Nazi record was known. It "exonerates" the Mufti, claims
his "integrity and leadership" were misunderstood, and "explains"
his criminal record of collaboration. It is signed by Miss Frances
Newton, friend of Jew-baiting Captain Gordon-Canning, and Yusif
el Bandefc, one of the chief Arab propagandists sent to this country.
(For Bandek's activities, and the story of his backers here, see the
Appendix. The facts on the Mufti are related in Chapter XXII) .
THE
ANGLO-ARAB FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MUFTI
The Mufti exonerated.
, ,
Hoaaded thus
. _ t
from one Islamic country to another, where could he be sate ?
Asia and Africa being closed, it was in Europe alone that no
Zionist influence could secure his arrest. First in Italy and later
in Germany, he remained, living in semi-house arrest under
the close surveillance of the Gestapo, till, when the war ended
he moved into a villa near Paris. From France he again moved
to Alexandria where he now remains in the custody of the
Egyptian Government
It is hoped that in the interest of continued
good relations between the British and the Arabs, His Majesty's
Government will re-consider their present attitude towards die
one outstanding personality in whose integrity and leadership
the Arabs, both Christians and Moslems, place their confidence.
The Mufti hof* the key.
To think that the Arabs will accept any proposal for the
solution of the deadlock in Palestine without the co-operation of
the Mufti, would simply be a grave mistake.
Arab Liaison.
MOUSTAPHA H. VVAHBA.
36 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
diet. Between the appetizer and soup, we minced him. Be-
tween the soup and entree we had him roasted, or hanging
from Palestinian lamp-posts. Thereafter the Jew dead 7 quar-
tered, massacred was with us till we left.
"Palestine is the only country in the world where the Gen-
tiles can get theirs in against the Jews/' Canning said. We all
agreed that killing off six hundred thousand Jews would be
as easy for the Arabs as shooting ducks.
Miss Newton said she had bought property in Palestine
many years ago for 3,800 and had sold it to the Jews for
47,000. "I plan to have my property back after the Jews have
been disposed of," she added callously.
"I give the Jew two years after the Arabs win/' Canning
observed. "The Arabs will do it gradually/'
They discussed Miss Newton's plan to buy ambulances and
medical supplies for the Arabs. Canning promised to hold
receptions in his apartment to raise funds. "We'll help behind
the scenes," he said. "It wouldn't do for me to appear pub-
licly on your committee. They'll call you Fascist. The Admi-
ral has also been smeared. We'll all work from the sidelines."
"All of us should help, whether with a rifle in our right
hand, or with our left hand in our pocket," Admiral Dom-
ville added brightly.
"Helping the Arab should come before our efforts at
home/* said Miss Newton,
"If we break the back of the Jew in Palestine, we have
broken it for a long time to come," was Ramsay's contribution
to the conversation.
INTERNATIONAL HATE-MERCHANT
I RETURNED to my hotel to find a letter addressed to
Charles L. Morey which had been forwarded to me from St.
John, Indiana. It was from a notorious Swedish anti-Semite,
Einar Aberg, In it he suggested that I ought to write one
London: The Odyssey Begins 37
George F. Green, in care of the Press Club, London. I was
in London; and a man thus endorsed was worth investigating.
I lost no time, telephoned him, and he agreed to see me.
Green headed the Independent Nationalists, and edited
a British version of The International Jew. His contacts were
worldwide. Gerald L. K. Smith quoted from his bulletins.
We, the Mothers, Chicago's leading female hate-contingent,
not only quoted from them, but also sold The International
Jew. In Canada Green's correspondent was Adrian Arcand,
once fuehrer of the Blue Shirts; in Rhodesia, Henry Beamish;
he had similar correspondents in Argentina, South Africa,
and Germany. There were many others, of course.
Green had no sooner greeted me at the Press Club than he
expressed fears of "surveillance by MI-5" (British Army Intel-
ligence). "Let's not remain indoors/' he said. We walked to
Victoria Embankment Park.
He was a short, pudgy, red-faced man, dressed in a worn
and wrinkled dark suit, and he had about him the air of an
energetic door-to-door salesman. He had earlier been in adver-
tising and public-relations work. What teeth he possessed
were irregular and brown-stained. A goodly number were miss-
ing, giving his mouth an empty look but by no means in-
terfering with his loquacity.
"I've been busy/' he said. "I had to provide bail for some
of our members who were arrested and fined." He was refer-
ring to the epidemic of brick-throwing against Jewish shops,
the rioting and the beating of Jews in a dozen English cities
and towns. "I don't want to see one brick thrown," Green
muttered between his missing teeth. "I want to see a million.
But I'm against too much violence at this time. Bad tactics.
We're not strong enough. Things will get better for us as
England goes down. The Jews are bringing on the crisis.
When it comes, we'll be in."
Green talked on. "It's Zionist world-Jewry and their control
of international finance which is a threat to world peace. I'm
against giving foreigners citizenship. I'm against internation-
38 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
alism and Communism. The Independent Nationalists is a
radical and revolutionary party. We're for a Briton's Britain."
Green continued now sounding like a Communist suggest-
ing once again the alliance possible with political extremists:
"I'm against the exploitation of the people by the privileged
and the powerful few. I'm against the party system. I'm
against Monopoly Capitalism. There is no freedom under the
venal monopoly press. There is no free trade under the inter-
national cartels. Britain shall not become a Yankee puppet
state!"
He added, suddenly: "I wish I were in the States now. Back
in 1926 I was offered thirty thousand dollars for a promotional
job. Fve looked back to that offer. I wish I had taken it."
Some time later Green sent a letter to me, part of which I
reproduce for its brutal forthrightness:
"I have only one word JEW. I am not prepared ... to
join in any activities which are not fully, openly and efficiently
directed against all the activities of world-Jewry. Racial, politi-
cal, social, economic in fact a spiritual and material war on
Jewry. Race is first, fundamental; next comes nationalism. . . .
Let us by all means unite and work together on the major
problem, the cause of world-evils: Jewry, jewishness, Judaism.
If you can inspire such a united effort of nationalists against
Jewry I am with you wholeheartedly. I am confident that my
friends in Africa and Sweden are, too. . . . Thank you for
your card but the reason why I don't go and enjoy the food
and sunshine you mentioned is the fact that I am now tightly
fixed in a Jewish concentration camp called "England."
Green assured me that he was friendly with the editor of
World's Press News, an important British weekly. I was skep-
tical of Green's claim until he arranged for the three of us to
meet for lunch. When the editor failed to show up, I was not
altogether surprised. The very next day, however, I received
not only an apology but a proof that Green was at least ac-
quainted with him:
London: The Odyssey Begins 39
I am sorry that I was unable to make the grade today and
link up with Green to see you, but this is press day and I have
been very rushed. I shall make a point, however, of contacting
Green in the next day or two I have a tentative mission on
which to see him and will hope to absorb from him some-
thing of what you have been able to tell him.
With regrets,
Yours sincerely,
(signed) Arthur J. Heighway
Managing Director and Editor
I called on Heighway immediately. By this time I had
learned that he had written an editorial in the September 25,
1947, issue calling attention to the Protocols of the Elders of
Zion. Although admitting that a Swiss court had declared the
Protocols to be a forgery, Heighway commented: 'That
'forger 7 seems to have been a prophet of no mean order/ 7 I
wanted to know why he had written this, and whether Green
had put him up to it.
My interview was short, for which I was glad. Heighway was
youngish and prematurely gray. He impressed me as smug
and self-satisfied. I came to the point and asked him about
the Protocols.
"Green gave me a copy, 77 Heighway said, "I don't know if
they are truthful or not. That is not the issue. All I know is
that they fit into present conditions. Maybe some parts are
faked, but there is enough truth in them to make them worth
while. 77
Heighway's attitude toward a document that had been the
Nazis 7 favorite instrument betrayed an amazing lack of repor-
torial integrity in a man holding an influential position in
British journalism. I was shocked.
"Are you in touch with the Arabs? 77 I asked.
"Why, yes. I met Shawa Bey recently at luncheon. Let's
see . . ." Heighway raked through a sheaf of calling cards
and found what he was looking for. "Here it is Izzed-een
Shawa Bey."
40 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
"I know/' I said. "Mr. Green asked me to look him up,
too."
"Very intelligent fellow/' Heighway commented. "Knows
what he is doing."
"What is he doing in London?" I asked.
"Organizing British ex-servicemen for the Palestine show.
He's got five hundred of them, all trained men, and he's got
officers to train them further."
"Do you intend to press the Arab viewpoint in World's
Press News?"
"Well, we're supposed to be neutral," Heighway an-
swered. "But if there's a newsbreak we'll see what we can do."
He laughed toothily, and I left him.
In my hotel room my last night in London, I packed for the
next leg of my journey to Cairo. As Charles L. Morey I had
met those I had wanted to meet and had been given an in-
structive introduction to what I might expect in the Middle
East. I sent to New York large quantities of hate-literature for
my files; and I had also sent a thick envelope of notes. All this
I knew, however, did not reflect the real, the democratic Eng-
land.
For as a people, I had found the average Britisher decent,
law-abiding and even-tempered. I had begun to understand
why the British always pull through; and I had begun to ap-
preciate their moral strength, their emotional maturity which,
it seemed to me, helped explain why they were able to gravi-
tate into the orbit of Socialism without a violent revolution.
The Burgesses, the Cannings, and the Greens were not typical
of the British. Nothing, I felt, so truly typified the British
spirit as did Hyde Park, the very Hyde Park I could look down
upon from my room in the Cumberland.
One unforgettable Sunday night, as a cold drizzle fell, I had
strolled by when a lean, hungry-looking man in cap and
Bowery-like overcoat began to lead a group in old-fashioned
hymns. There were many young people and a sprinkling of
London: The Odyssey Begins 41
soldiers in the crowd. Perhaps it was the faces of these young,
earnest men and women, or perhaps it was the nostalgic mem-
ory of my choir-singing days as a boy in the Old World but
I was deeply stirred. I joined them, singing the hymns I had
learned in Sunday school in Mineola. I felt, somehow, that I
belonged with these, the underprivileged and unheralded.
Around me were men and women who for years had lived
in the cavernous depths of subway tunnels, survived the diet
of fish paste and horse meat, wore the same clothes months
on end, and faced every conceivable hardship with fortitude.
They could never be truly crushed or defeated. If such a peo-
ple still kept faith in their nation and faith in their God, and
prayed to Him with hymns under a drizzle that chilled me to
the bone then such a people, I felt, with God's help should
and would live forever. For this was the home of freemen, of
brave and devout men. The last vision I have of Hyde Park is
that of the lean Englishman in the Bowery coat using a
stubby pencil as baton, leading the group in Abide With Me.
I felt that was the real Englishman, the real England. Not
the imperialistic England of ruthless colonial rule, not the
England of the British lion, its tail twisted by Eire, Iran, and
others yet to come, nor yet that of the English bulldog snarl-
ing at the dark peoples of the world, but an England of pious,
humble, kindly men and women. As I saw it, there was much
to be condemned in their tolerance of the immoral interna-
tional standards set by their Foreign and Colonial offices, but
I felt that whatever they, the people, undertook to do, they
would do calmly, without hysteria. They had faith in their
country, in their God, and in themselves.
Early the next morning I visited a physician and was inocu-
lated against cholera. At noon I was aboard a plane flying
east eastward via Switzerland to Cairo, heart of the Moslem
world, neighbor to the Holy Land now preparing for a life-
and-death struggle on an ancient battlefield.
(CHAPTER II)
CAIRO: THE KING'S JUNGLE
"You will maybe like this!" The Arab demonstrated.
What seemed to be an ordinary whip suddenly be-
came a vicious, four-sided, ten-inch dagger tapering
to a fine point. "This knife for Yahood. But maybe
you Amenkans like Yahood, yes?*
I took no chances. "No, I hate Jews. Allah's curse
on them."
THE plane dipped sickeningly. I attempted to struggle up-
right in my seat but the safety belt held me like a straight-
jacket. I groaned.
I was in a state of delirium from my cholera shot. There
was no doubt that it had taken. A red welt the size of a mush-
room was rising rapidly. A high fever ran through me. Twice
I had stumbled while walking to the plane, for the fever
burned at my temples like a scourge. Once in the plane I had
fallen into my seat, and tried to doze off awakening in fits
and starts, each time with a sense of impending doom. Sud-
denly I let out a cry. Though I thought I had suppressed it,
the hostess hurried to my side.
"Look! We're going to hit that mountain!"
"That's the Matterhom," she said quietly. "We won't hit
it."
The Matterhorn was a terrifying sight in the blue-white
Cairo: The Kings Jungle 43
light of early dawn. A giant sheath of awesome rock, it
leaped up from the depths of the earth to the heavens, a flame
of stone nearly three miles high. It seemed alive to my tor-
tured eyes, like a Cyclops challenging our flight. It was the
most sinister peak in the glowering, snow-capped mountains
that reared their white crests on either side as we roared per-
ilously between them at more than four miles a minute.
I had no recollection of the rest of the trip. I have no idea
of the route. I took neither food nor drink. I suffered night-
mares. I writhed and tossed and broke out in wave after wave
of alternate hot fevers and cold sweats. ... It was symbolic.
I was leaving the West and plunging into the maelstrom of
the Middle East a transition from one world to another
radically different. The Eastern world the world of tomor-
row's major revolution was bathed in anarchy and in blood-
letting, a mirror showing the face of man as no man would
wish to see it. ...
I awoke to hear the hostess announce: "We are landing in
Cairo."
It was seven p.m., exactly on schedule. The day was March
2, 1948. "The month of March, the month of trouble,"
Mother used to say. By an odd coincidence it was on March
1, 1921, that we left the Old World to come to the New.
Now, exactly twenty-seven years later, I was returning to the
Middle East, that mysterious, often sinister part of the world
about which we really know so little, and that little so glam-
orized and distorted by partisans as to resemble fiction more
than truth.
THE KING'S JUNGLE
I ALIGHTED from the plane into the jungle of Almaza
Airport (where an advocate of "white supremacy" would cer-
tainly have had instant apoplexy). We were herded by a
dozen dark-skinned officials and plainclothesmen wearing
44 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
fezzes in Egypt called a tarboosh into an enclosure. To call
it barnlike is to dignify that square-shaped factorylike ware-
house with its low ceiling, its sickly yellow lighting and its
wild melange of milling, sweating men. We were lined up
against a counter under a huge photograph of King Farouk,
while a slovenly official in blue serge and tarboosh took his
place behind a rough wooden table and began to check our
names twice against what was evidently a blacklist. Ahead of
me in the line was a passenger whom I recognized by his name
as Armenian. I struck up a conversation with him. He was a
well-to-do merchant who had escaped from Rumania a step
ahead of the satellite police. Eventually he hoped to reach
Brazil.
"The Turks killed my father and brother and burned our
home. The Nazis killed my other brother. Only my mother is
alive in Rumania. She begged me to leave in hopes that I
could keep alive the family name/'
The bureaucracy at Almaza Airport was appalling. Pass-
ports were tossed from hand to hand; baggage was examined
and re-examined; orders were shouted and replies shouted
back; every official managed to interfere with the work another
had done or was trying to do and all this amid an ear-split-
ting babble of screaming and hysterical, gesticulating argu-
ment. A horde of porters, idlers, and hotel agents streamed
through an exit to my left. Every few minutes, when the
clamor grew unbearable, an official would literally howl above
the tumult. There would be a momentary silence and then the
noise began again.
The porters were a far cry from what I had been accus-
tomed to in the United States. They were dressed in catch-as-
catch-can clothing some in European dress or parts thereof;
others in the traditional costume of the Egyptian fellah, or
everyday laborer, consisting principally of a long-sleeved cot-
ton nightshirt called a gallafaiya, which came almost to the
ankles. It was open at the neck and revealed cither a vest or
naked skin. The feet were bare, or sometimes encased in
Cairo: The King's Jungle 45
sandals, the toes protruding. A few wore a sash around their
waists. Some had brightly colored calico skullcaps. The cheeks
of some of the darkest-skinned were scarred with deep vertical
gashes tribal decorations. These were Sudanese, natives of
the great rich land to the south of Egypt.
In some concern I asked my Armenian friend: "Where
are you going to sleep tonight?" I had made no plans for my-
self.
"I have reservations at the Continental Hotel/* he said.
"Suppose I go there with you/' I suggested. "If I don't get
a room, will you let me sleep on the floor?"
He smiled. "Oh, I don't think it will be that bad/' he said.
And then he spoke with Armenian hospitality: "But, please,
you are welcome to use my bed. I can sleep on the floor it
will not be a new experience for me."
More than two hours later, we were still trapped in red
tape and inefficiency in the airport. When we were finally
cleared by the customs it was ten p.m. We emerged through
the doors with a sigh of relief, only to find ourselves plunged
into a new bedlam as porters, idlers, hotel-hawkers all lunged
at our luggage at the same time, pulling us in half a dozen
different directions.
"Please, sair, my hotel is the best in Cairo, with hot water
and clean beds. . . ."
"Please, sair, there is no better hotel in Egypt. This way,
sair."
We fought our way to a taxi, carefully supervised the load-
ing of our bags, and hurled ourselves inside. We left behind
us the jungle of Almaza Airport and two loudly protesting
nightshirted porters who had received the equivalent of a
dollar tip.
"Give them a pound," * the driver muttered in heavily ac-
cented English, "and they will still curse you."
Cairo, an hour or so before midnight, was wide awake.
Many shops were open and the sidewalks were crowded.
lr The Egyptian pound was then worth $4.12.
46 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
Despite my fears, there were rooms available at the Conti-
nental, a long-ranging hotel with a terrace fronting on one of
the city's main streets. We each drew a long, bare, high-ceil-
inged room, its furniture consisting of a bureau with fly-
specked mirror, a mat, a washbasin, and a high, squeaky iron-
poster bed. We ordered a midnight snack, served by a
white-robed Sudanese waiter wearing a high red fez. As we
ate, my Armenian friend spoke bitterly of his experiences.
Had the police, he wondered, seized his mother, perhaps tor-
tured her to learn his whereabouts? Was she even alive at this
moment? He was eating the good, rich food of Cairo: had his
mother even a hard crust of bread?
"Asvadez medz eh," I said to him in Armenian. "God is
merciful/'
Then we separated and went to our rooms.
Tired as I was, I lay for a long time, thinking, before sleep
came. My plans, for the moment, were not too clear. One
man I had to see: Ahmed Hussein, leader of the Green Shirts
of Egypt, who I knew had been in the United States lecturing
and organizing as an Arab agent. I counted on him to intro-
duce me to the undercover world of Egypt. But I felt, intui-
tively, that I must not be overeager. First, I must get the feel
of Cairo; learn something of the customs, habits, peculiarities,
even smells, of Egypt and its people. So far as anyone was
concerned, I was no longer Charles Morey. He now van-
ished and I became myself, using my real name an American
of Armenian descent, a Christian sympathizer with all things
Egyptian and Arabic.
And on that thought, I fell asleep.
I was awakened, it seemed only a few hours later, by the
braying of a donkey. I looked at my wrist watch. Six a.m.!
At first I thought this a novel, even romantic way to be
aroused, but that fiendish animal awoke me punctually at
the same unearthly hour every morning of the twenty-nine
days I stayed at the Continental. I devised wild schemes to
silence it. I thought of threatening its master, of hurling a
Cairo: The King's Jungle 47
well-aimed flowerpot, of poisoning it in some ingenious man-
ner, but from my window I could not even see my enemy.
Nor did I ever find him the loudest-braying donkey in Cairo!
My initiation into the rough and tumble of Cairo street
life began as soon as I came down the steps of the hotel ter-
race. At once I found myself the coveted prize of three night-
shirted men fighting the privilege of accosting the newly
arrived foreigner. The winner the fiercest in manner, voice
and face won by jabbing the others with his elbow, accom-
panied by threatening gestures with an ugly black whip he
obviously carried for that purpose. For a full block as I walked,
ignoring him, the dragoman kept at my side, chattering ex-
citedly in English, offering to show me the sights of Cairo,
the Pyramids, the bazaars, the restaurants. I played mute lest
he learn that I was an American, universally considered a
millionaire, or at least a fool with money.
"Allah, Allah. Leave me alone!" I growled finally. "I don't
want anything/ 7
"Ahhhh, you are Amerikan!" He grinned at me like an old
friend. "Welcome. Amerikans I love very much. I have many
Amerikan friends. See, sair, I have letters from Ameri-
kans. . . ." He began producing testimonials to his abilities
as a guide. "Amerikan ladies say how wonderful my serv-
ive. . . ." He stuck his card in my hand.
Every morning thereafter, like the braying donkey, for
twenty-nine mornings Abdel Baki Abdel Kerim went through
the same ritual. Nothing I could do made any impression
upon him. The moment he accosted me, grinning his grin of
love and affection, I would yell NO! in a voice loud enough to
shatter windows across the street. Abdel Baki Abdel Kerim
was never discouraged; after trotting along with me for a
block, he would stop, wave his hand in salute, and shout
happily after me: "Tomorrow, sair, please, I see you again
tomorrow."
Uncannily, he always saw me first After a while I accepted
my fate and took "Dragoman No. 12" for granted, and even
48 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
used him as a source of information. Many hustlers of his
type earned a livelihood by any and every means: as guides to
the city; as liaison to hasheesh dives; as commission merchants
for perfumes, jewelry, handbags; as money-changers and black-
market operators; as procurers of women and men as well.
Homosexuality was a socially acceptable vice practised com-
monly in all Arab countries, as I was to learn. Dragomen were
prepared for money to supply me with any commodity,
human, animal, or vegetable, and to suspend all judgment on
my morals.
Business was bad on all fronts, Abdel Baki complained.
Tourists had been frightened by a recent cholera epidemic;
there was a great deal of suspicion and hatred of foreigners,
particularly among hot-headed students and "political" men
who didn't realize how fine and splendid American tourists
were; and to add to all the trouble, tourists were frightened
by the long-awaited Arab-Jewish war in neighboring Palestine.
"Ah, sair, the Jews . . ." he said.
I MEET THE POLICE
HALF of my day in Cairo was spent keeping out of jail. I
began the morning determined to photograph a near-by
mosque, magnificent with its slender stately minaret silhou-
etted against a breathtakingly blue sky.
I focused my camera but hadn't even pressed the shutter
when I became aware that someone was watching me. A
short distance away stood a policeman, dressed in a shapeless
black wool uniform and the ever present red fez. I closed my
camera and nonchalantly moved on. Glancing in a showcase,
I saw him nearing me. A moment later a heavy hand plum-
meted down on my shoulder, and another grabbed my camera,
nearly ripping the shoulder strap. He pulled me over to a
traffic officer and the two jabbered excitedly. A surly crowd
Cairo: The King's Jungle 49
gathered. It was decided that my fate should be sealed in the
Karakol Abdin Kism the Abdin District Police Station.
Flanked by the two policemen, and followed by a crowd
yelling "Yahoodi" Jew we walked on. Once I turned
around, and beating my breast like an outraged patriot, I
shouted: "I am an American!"
"Then you are worse than a Jew!" someone yelled in perfect
English.
Those in front rushed up, tried to jab me with their sticks,
and threatened me with their whips. Most Egyptians appar-
ently carried one or the other, handy for warding off flies,
urchins, or would-be thugs. Had not the police flailed back
savagely, I might easily have been mauled. A few months later
an American, Stephen A. Haas of Philadelphia, sight-seeing
with his wife and an Arab guide, was fatally beaten while
police looked the other way. 2
Once inside Abdin Station, an arsenal bristling with police,
each of my two captors grabbed one of my arms and vigorously
pushed me into a dark room. Dozens of rifles were leaning
against its walls. On a shelf above were several dozen black
shields obviously used by the police when they charged riot-
ing mobs. In one corner were piled handcuffs and loaded bam-
boo poles; in another, three-foot-long wooden clubs, appar-
ently companion pieces to the shields. I was unceremoniously
shoved before Sergeant Abdel Fattah of the Criminal Investi-
gation Department.
"Your passport/' he said as soon as I entered.
2 On July 17, 1948, Haas was attacked by a mob near the Citadel.
Stabbed and left dying on the street, he was finally picked up and taken to a
police station. There he died in the presence of his wife, who had to stand
by helplessly as her husband bled on the floor where he had been flung by
the police. Nor could she seek help from the United States consul or from
doctors, according to newspaper reports.
Our charg< d'affaires vigorously protested against "the unwillingness of
certain Egyptian police to intervene promptly and effectively, and of their
totally unwarranted and inexplicable efforts to prevent Mrs. Haas from com-
municating immediately with the American Embassy." Later three Egyptians
were arrested. Eventually they were released and nothing further happened.
50 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
He stood up as I approached. The two police made their
complaint. Sergeant Fattah stared at me for a moment im-
passively, and then sat down and began to write. He wrote for
ten minutes in slow Arabic characters, proceeding from right
to left, asking questions as he scribbled. The police nodded. I
had said nothing up to this time, and finally ventured: "All
I wanted was to take a picture of a beautiful mosque/ 7
"In a few minutes we will finish," Sergeant Fattah said po-
litely. He left for a moment and returned with three plain-
clothesmen. They took positions on either side and behind me.
Then they rearranged themselves, studying my face from every
angle. I felt history was repeating itself. Back in the days with
the Bund and the Christian Front, anti-Semitic thugs would
similarly study me to determine if I were Jewish.
"I am a Christian American/' I found myself saying.
"You may smoke if you wish," said Sergeant Fattah. "In a
few minutes we will finish."
Another culprit was pushed in a cross-eyed man, bare-
footed, dressed in a filthy nightshirt. Still another was brought
in limping, with running eyes; he was shunted to one of the
other desks. A third, dressed in a semi-military costume, was
yanked in by his scruff, and stood cowering. At least, all three
got action, for they were taken away at once.
"What are you going to do with me?" I finally asked Ser-
geant Fattah.
"In a few minutes we will finish." It was the third time he
had said it.
"I would like to telephone our embassy," I said.
"Yes, you can telephone. I will take you to a telephone."
Led by the sergeant and followed by my two policemen, I
crossed a room teeming with police and wretchedly dressed
men and women under arrest. We finally arrived in a dungeon-
like cubbyhole under a staircase. Painted black up to the
height of my shoulders, it was a damp, filthy hold smelling of
sweat, with no ventilation except a tiny barred window high
Cairo: The Kings Jungle 51
above us. Behind an ancient, battered switchboard sat Cairo's
most excitable man: a gray-haired toothless police officer with
a face like well worn brown leather and two earphones perched
over his bald head. In front of him were two old-fashioned
desk phones and a mouthpiece protruding from the switch-
board, and into these he screamed alternately. Evidently there
were no extension phones in the building, for he would scrawl
a message, howl for a courier, and scream at him to hurry
with it. I watched, fascinated by the sight of this toothless
old man frantically and conscientiously trying at this antique
board to handle all the incoming and outgoing messages of an
extremely busy police station. Every few minutes he would rip
out all of the plugs, slam down both phones, clamp his fist
over the mouthpiece, pull off the earphones, and glare, like a
madman in a fit of temporary sanity. I could not blame him.
Any man could easily go out of his mind in that black
dungeon.
I was in line to make my call when he suddenly stiffened.
Apparently an urgent message was coming in. He gestured to
us to be quiet, listened intently, then chattered excitedly. Ser-
geant Fattah said it was from the "European Division" and it
concerned me. For the next few minutes my fate hung in the
balance, as the operator wrote the message while the two
phones jangled madly. Finally he gave the note to the ser-
geant, who read it silently, and then motioned me to follow
him. We retraced our steps, the two police clinging behind
me like bloodhounds.
When we arrived at his desk, Sergeant Fattah announced
that he was compelled to keep my camera pending further in-
vestigation. Paper, cord, and sealing wax were brought. My
camera was wrapped as carefully as any of Pharoah's mum-
mies, and tucked away in a desk drawer, with the promise that
it would be returned to me. I was free.
Returning to my hotel room, I delegated my hat a col-
lapsible Stetson to the bottom of my suitcase. It definitely
52 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
marked me as a European. I unpacked my second camera, a
flat folding type/ put it inconspicuously in my coat pocket and
sallied out again. At a near-by sidewalk cafe I took a seat and
ordered a jet-black, sickly sweet demi-tasse.
Cairo's daily life swirled around me. Men in gallabfya went
by with swishing skirts. Copper-skinned Bedouins walked past
in native burnous (muslin cloak, sweeping down to their feet)
and fehaffiya (a linen headdress, usually white, worn over the
head, and falling over the neck.) Rare, white-skinned, un-
veiled Egyptian beauties mingled with parchment-faced ortho-
dox Moslem women wearing their black yashmak, veil. Swarms
of urchins who apparently hadn't bathed since birth ran about
looking for opportunities to beg or pilfer. Hawkers peddled
combs, wallets, contraceptives, and whips. One peddler who
came to my table was particularly insistent, although I re-
peatedly waved him away. He was a keen-faced young man.
"You will maybe like this!" the Arab demonstrated. What
seemed to be an ordinary whip suddenly became a vicious,
four-sided, ten-inch dagger tapering to a fine point. "This
knife for Yahood But maybe you Amerikans like Yahood,
yes?"
I took no chances. "No, I hate Jews. Allah's curse on them."
"Ah," he grinned triumphantly. "Then you buy knife to
kill Yahood?"
"No. I have one bigger, a Turkish knife. I kill Armenians
and Jews with it."
Sly money-changers sidled up to me. A beggar in tatters and
the face of a mummy stretched out a palsied hand in the name
of Allah. Cabmen drove with one hand on the wheel, the
other on the horn, shouting at jaywalkers. Donkeys hee-hawed
interminably from every quarter. Powdered horse-dung, finely
ground under the wheels of carriages, was wafted by every
passing breeze into my nostrils and into my cup of coffee.
Swarms of green-black flies patronizingly came to my table
3 Weltur, with Zeiss Tessar f/2.8 lens, taking 2 1 A X 2% pictures. With
it I took most of my subsequent photographs.
Cairo: The King's Jungle 53
after feasting at fresh droppings everywhere. Two students now
approached me, selling anti-Jewish stamps in support of a
war fund. By this time I knew the answers.
"I love Cairo, queen of Arab cities. Give me two dollars'
worth."
"Thank you, thank you, Amerikan. We wish you good for-
tune."
An hour later their good wishes came true, for the two dol-
lars proved the wisest investment I made in Cairo.
After my coffee, I decided to stroll along a main street,
pledging myself to keep out of trouble. But a camera in the
pocket of a photographer burns like idle money in the hands
of a gambler. I looked around carefully, up and down the
block. I whipped out my camera and sighted the window of
an attractive pastry shop. Surely there could be nothing sub-
versive in photographing luscious, syrupy, mouth-drooling
baklawa and katayef pride and joy of Oriental pastry.
Without warning, someone from behind struck-down my
wrist, and clutched my sleeve. A short, stocky, wild-eyed
Egyptian was chattering at me.
"OK, take it easy, take it easy," I said, pocketing my camera.
"Ahaaa! You Amerikan?" He became more excited. Grip-
ping my sleeve in a clutch of steel, he shouted for help. A
dozen passersby rushed over, surrounding me. Off we went
again double time, to the karakol. Luckily, this time it was not
the Abdin Station but another, the Mouski District Police
Station. In the howling mob that followed was a youth who
spoke a few words of English. In his hands were sheets of the
same stamps I had bought a few minutes earlier.
Into the karakol we trooped. This time, Allah was with me.
The sergeant I confronted smiled at the accusations of the
wild-eyed Egyptian who had seized me. When I showed my
anti-Jewish stamps, and proclaimed that the Egyptians were
the elite of all the Arabs, the English-speaking youth cham-
pioned my cause. His voice could scarcely be heard, because
by this time everyone, including ihe sergeant, was screaming at
54 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
the top of his lungs, trying to prove my innocence or guilt. I
joined the grim fun. "Yahood, nix Yahood, no good!" I
screamed above everybody else in makeshift Arabic. "Arabi
good. Arabi good!" I put my right hand over my heart in token
of my esteem for the Arab.
My new-found stamp-selling friend and the sergeant were
convinced of my Arab patriotism. The fanatic who had hauled
me in, and those who had swarmed after us, wanted me pun-
ished, Allah knows for what. During the melee, the sergeant
winked, and motioned with his head toward the door. I took
the hint, and slipped out at the height of the scrimmage.
Several of the street mob were waiting outside. I passed
them by with a smile and a greeting, waving the stamps be-
fore them.
I felt I was being followed, and tried devious methods to
shake off anyone who might be trailing me. I was outwitted. A
few blocks from the Continental, two bearded youths came up
to me, one on each side. They spoke excellent English. They
said they were students at Fouad University. Both were op-
posed to the anti-Jewish demonstration that had been taking
place in Cairo. As a foreigner, did I not think such mob action
was shameful?
I admonished them for their lack of patriotism. What man-
ner of Moslems were they? To gain favor in the sight of Allah
one must demonstrate against the Jews. "Even though I am
a Christian, I swear by the holy beard of your Prophet that I
wish the Jew nothing but ill luck during all his days on earth
and in the hereafter. May Allah always smile with good for-
tune on the Arab cause."
The two changed tactics immediately. They were delighted
to know that not all Americans were pro-Zionist. One of them,
named Gamal a tall, thin, wiry student gave me his address
and asked me to call on him. They shook my hand cordially.
As we were about to part, a turbaned head leaned out of the
window of the house in front of which we were standing. A
voice asked the time.
Uairo: me Kings Jungle 55
"It is time for the evening prayer/' Gamal said, and the
dark face withdrew.
"Fiemen el hh (God be with you), good Amerikan."
"Fiemen el Iah," I returned.
AHMED HUSSEIN ARAB FUEHRER
HAVING had these indications of how Egypt treated the
stranger, I warily began my investigation of Ahmed Hussein,
fuehrer of the fanatic Green Shirts, more formally known as
Misr el Fattat, the Young Egypt Party. I was sure I could
meet Hussein by posing as a friend of those he knew in the
United States. I knew Hussein's background. During the war
he had been placed in custody for pro-Fascist sympathies. In
1942, with Rommel and his Afrika Korps hammering at El
Alamein, one of Hussein's colleagues, a Green Shirt leader,
led street demonstrations, screaming at the top of his voice:
"Advance, Rommel. Please, Rommel, come quickly to Egypt/'
Before the war Hussein had visited Italy, toured Fascist
youth camps, and returned tremendously impressed. He also
went to Germany, but got a cool reception. He then wrote a
pamphlet, "Message to Hitler!" inviting Hitler to achieve
peace of soul by embracing Islam, "the religion of God's unity
and of solidarity, the religion of order and leadership."
In New York some of Hussein's writings were distributed by
Habib Katibah (the same Katibah whom Shawa Bey in Lon-
don asked me if I knew), who was frequently seen with
Hussein when the latter visited the United States in 1947.
Katibah's background is revealing. He had founded the Arab
National League, a propaganda agency which received the en-
dorsement of World Service, the notorious Nazi propaganda
mill, for its efforts in "spreading the truth." Another founder,
Dr. George Kheiralla, received assurances from James Wheeler-
Hill, once Bund national secretary: "Our own organization
56 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
will work with you 100% and do whatever possible to assist
you."
After Pearl Harbor the League was dissolved, but in 1945
Katibah suddenly reappeared on the letterhead of the stream-
lined Institute of Arab American Affairs, listing on its ad-
visory board such prominent Americans as Kermit Roosevelt,
Virginia C. Gildersleeve, dean emeritus, Barnard College; and
William E. Hocking, professor emeritus, Harvard University.
After a while Katibah 's name disappeared from the letterhead,
and was replaced by that of Khalil Totah as executive director.
Katibah, however, remained very much on the scene.
As tension mounted in Palestine, Katibah, the extraordinary
Benjamin H. Freedman 4 (whose name was originally listed
on the Institute letterhead, but was later mysteriously X'd
out), and R. M. Schoendorf in reality Mrs. Freedman
sponsored a series of advertisements under the imprint of 'The
League for Peace With Justice in Palestine/' An apostate Jew,
Freedman's political views and extreme aversion for Zionism
and his own people took such violent expression that he was
esteemed by America's leading Jew-baiters, ranging from the
psychopathic to a more dangerous variety. Merwin K. Hart
joined Freedman's camp by devoting several issues of his bi-
weekly bulletin to Freedman's fulminations that "a small
minority of Jews has maneuvered itself into a position where
it can use almost the whole of Western Christendom as its
tool"; and that "Soviet Communism will succeed in its at-
tempt to conquer the world in direct proportion to the sup-
port which America gives to Zionism."
While Hussein was lecturing in the United States, he was
represented in court proceedings by a Brooklyn attorney
named Hallam Maxon Richardson. Richardson, attorney for
numerous "nationalist" clients, had once written an introduc-
4 Freedman came into the news again m 1950, as one of the master
minds behind the abortive attempt to prove that Anna M. Rosenberg, chosen
by Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall as U. S manpowei chief, was a
Communist. Freedman later withdrew the fantastic charge.
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58 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
tion to a book by Joseph E. Me Williams, speaker at Bund
meetings and fuehrer of the pro-Nazi Christian Mobilizers. 5
Hussein addressed a meeting for which invitations were sent
by a Yorkville hate-monger who had been sentenced to the
workhouse for participating in a meeting "tending towards a
breach of the peace/' Another speaker was Ernest F. Elmhurst,
a veteran hand at the Nazi hate game, once indicted for sub-
versive activities. 6 Thus, before leaving our hospitable shores,
Hussein made his bow to some of our more distinguished cit-
izens.
Shortly before he departed Hussein staged a banquet at the
Hotel Commodore in New York. Katibah was toastmaster.
Freedman was a speaker. 7 Richardson sat across the table from
a friend of mine who later filed a detailed report of the pro-
ceedings. Hart was absent, but in the assortment of bigots
and others was a surprising guest Faris Bey el Khouri, leader
of the Syrian delegation to the United Nations. The gathering
was also honored by the presence of none other than the
Mufti's political cohort, Azzam Pasha, to whom Captain
Gordon-Canning referred me as his friend. Azzam Pasha
praised Hussein as "a great leader, one who speaks from the
heart/' He added that he was delighted to have met "real
Americans, the Americans in this room tonight/' A weird note
was struck by the presence of a tipsy American Army colonel.
5 In 1943 McWilliams, with 29 others, was charged with conspiracy
"to establish and aid in the establishment of national socialist or fascist forms
of government in place of the forms of government then existing in the
United States/' and of carrying on "the objectives of said Nazi Party in the
United States" by means of "a systematic campaign of propaganda designed
and intended to undermine the loyalty and morale of the military and naval
forces. . . /'
6 Elmhurst was a defendant in the same trial with Me Williams. After a
mistrial occasioned by the death of the judge, the indictment was dismissed.
7 Freedman, represented by Richardson, testified at a court hearing in
which a criminal libel complaint was sought against the Rev. Henry A.
Atkinson, chairman of the Advisory Board of the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi
League, that he had paid half the bill for the banquet. He also testified that
he had spent more than $100,000 "of my own money" for pro-Arab adver-
tisements and other propaganda.
Cairo: The King's Jungle 59
Loudly, so that even Azzam Pasha heard, the colonel, gnawing
on a cigar, growled repeatedly: "When we gonna hear some
real Americans?"
Armed with these facts as to Hussein's background, one
morning I went to the headquarters of the Green Shirts to
see the Arab fuehrer, prepared to claim the friendship of those
Americans he had met, even though they and I could not be
farther apart.
(CHAPTER III)
GREEN SHIRTS AND RED FEZZES
"Our God is the strongest. We are not afraid to die.
The Jews are cowards because they want to live. The
Arabs would rather lose ten men than one gun.
The Jews are the opposite. They want to save their
lives and lose their guns. That is one difference be-
tween us"
Moustafa, Holy Warrior
THE headquarters of the Green Shirts more formally known
as Misr el Fattat, the Young Egypt Party was a two-storied
building in the heart of Cairo, with a balcony flanked by
Greek columns and Arabic grillwork. Passing a high iron
fence decorated with the crescent of Islam, I entered a court-
yard. Twin winding stairways led inside. I found Ahmed
Hussein in his office.
He was a short, volatile, clean-cut man of about thirty-
eight, with a round face and a thick brown mustache. He wore
his tarboosh at a jaunty angle. His features were distinctly
Semitic and light-complexioned. I introduced myself, told him
I was a journalist, and explained my mission: "I want to study
Arab life first-hand/' Only Allah could forgive me for the fib
I added: "I bring you greetings from Katibah and Freedman.
They ask after your health/'
Hussein's eyes lighted up, "Ahh, my brothers in America.
How is Richardson? 7 ' And he went on to tell how he had sued
Green Shirts and Red Fezzes 61
the New York Post for libel, and lost. "The Jews have all the
power/' he added. "It is the same in Egypt. When you see
Richardson tell him that he has a place in my heart, always/'
Hussein's English was almost perfect.
He ordered demi-tasse, then leaned back and studied me.
"May I see your passport?" he asked suddenly.
"Of course/' I congratulated myself on having decided not
to assume an undercover name. Truth would be my best de-
fense and confound my enemies. My only fear was that Hus-
sein might discover that I was also Carlson he could easily
ascertain this by writing to his New York friends and learn
that I was not only opposed to anti-Semitism, but had also ex-
posed some of the Arab propaganda flooding our country in
The Plotters. It would mean the end of my work and per-
haps even of me for Hussein had powerful contacts in the
government and the police of Cairo, not to mention a dan-
gerous gestapo of his own.
"Whom else do you know in New York?" he asked, con-
tinuing to hold my passport.
At this moment the door opened, and four police stalked in.
I nearly upset my coffee as I rose to my feet with Hussein.
Two of the troupe wore the black wool uniforms I had come
to detest; the others were in plain clothes, dressed as nattily as
our own FBI. Had they managed to trace me here? Had
Hussein already been warned by cables from Katibah or Freed-
man?
Hussein set me at ease. "An hour before you arrived a bomb
exploded in front of the building/' he explained. "The police
have come to investigate/'
He ordered another round of coffee: good, strong, jet-black,
bracing stuff, doubly welcome at that moment. The bomb, a
small one, had gone off in the street. Damage was light. Hus-
sein suspected the Ikhwan el Muslimin, the Moslem Brother-
hood, a powerful terrorist group whose headquarters were
only a block away. The police jotted down testimony, made a
pretense at looking about the building, and went away.
62 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
Hussein and I were again alone. It seemed to me that the
suspicion evident earlier had now died down. As we talked
casually of our mutual impressions of Egypt and the United
States, I could see that Hussein burned with a passion he
could scarcely control He was violently anti-British: "England
is a senile criminal, a dirty country that pretends to be Egypt's
friend. England is a bloodsucker that could not be decent even
if she tried/' Hussein declared. His voice rose to an oratorical
fervor: '"The slogan of Misr el Fattat is 'Glory to Egypt!'
Egypt is the mother of ideas. For four thousand years we have
given birth to ideas. We want to make Egypt a nation at the
top of all the nations of the earth! I want to see Egypt greater
than America, Britain, and Russia!"
I asked him why the Arabs were so deeply religious.
"Our religion is a simple one. It needs no interpreters. We
believe in Allah, Master of the world, who holds in his hand
the destiny of all people, and of everything. Every piece of
paper fluttering in the wind is destined to fall at an appointed
spot. Your visit was pre-destined. You came here because
Allah led your steps here. What you Americans call fatalism
is the very thing that makes us strong. We do not think for
ourselves, but place our fate in the hands of Allah. We go
through fire, and face a bullet without fear because we know
that Allah wills our destiny. We are not afraid of the future.
We live today, or die tomorrow. We eat, or not. It is all in
the hands of Allah. Our mind, our body, our soul, our life,
everything we are and hope to be, belongs to the Master. We
are creatures of His will, and have no will of our own over our
daily actions, or over our destiny. This is what our religion
and our Prophet teach us!"
I nodded sympathetically. Hussein looked at me for a mo-
ment, then got up and locked the door. "I am glad to talk to
you. I must thank my American brothers for sending you.
Now an Arab," he resumed, "is affected more by his feelings
than by reason. He is easy to get along with if you understand
him. He is ugly if you cross him. The Jews have crossed us
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64 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
and by the will of Allah that is a blessing in disguise. The
Jews have brought the Arabs together. We are united. The
world will respect us when we show our power. After we
liberate the Arab world from the English and the Jew, we'll
liberate the whole Moslem world from imperialism/' His
large brown eyes on fire, Hussein seemed to derive orgiastic
pleasure from these visions. "Then we will have peace. The
fire of unity burns in us. A peasant may not be ready to fight
tomorrow, but he is ready to be killed today. Peasants used to
mutilate themselves to avoid military duty. Now they volun-
teer. They are mad with the joy to die for Allah. As for the
Zionist Jew . . ." Hussein picked up an issue of Misr el Fat-
tat, the publication of the Green Shirts, and interpreted to
me as he read:
LET OUR MOTTO BE:
DEATH FOR THE ZIONISTS EVERYWHERE
AS JUST RETRIBUTION FOR THEIR BARBARISM
The Zionists are behaving like wild filthy beasts and they
must therefore be treated as such. . . . Are we to be slaugh-
tered like sheep by the Zionists and do nothing? We must cut
their throats as they cut ours. It is our duty to slaughter the
Zionists in Egypt as just retribution for Zionist atrocities in
Palestine. We must burn their homes and their shops and
then hold them as hostages and kill ten Zionists every time
an Arab child or woman in Palestine is murdered by the
Zionist beast.
I was back the next day with my camera. As I waited to
see Hussein, one of his aides listed for me the basic Green
Shirt principles: "Talk only Arabic. . . . Buy your goods
from an Egyptian. . . . Wear clothes made in Egypt. . . .
Eat Egyptian food. . . ." At this moment Hussein sent word
that he wanted to see me, and I was ushered hastily into his
office. Half a dozen others were there. I was asked to sit down.
They stared openly at me, talked among themselves, and then
to Hussein. He replied heatedly, and turned to me.
Green Shirts and Red Fezzes 65
"Some of our members think you are a Jew. Others think
you were sent here as a spy. I have told them that you come
from our brothers in America. You do not know Arabic: a
good spy would know Arabic. I have also told them that you
are not an American, but an Armenian. As for me, I say you
are not a spy."
"Please tell your friends/' I said, "that I am honored to
have your hospitality, but if you do not wish to grant it
further, I shall take my leave in peace, and wish you well. I
am in Egypt to study your way of life, and to write about it.
If I see good I shall write good things. Instead of spending my
time at night-clubs, with women, with English propagandists,
I have come to you for my education/' This was the truth. "I
do not seek your secrets. For my part, my life is as open to
you as it is to Allah/ 7
Hussein interpreted my remarks, then turning to me, said:
"You are the first American who has tried to understand us
by coining to live among us. You are welcome. We think you
must have Moslem blood. You do not smoke or drink, or eat
pork. You think like an Arab, you are beginning to look like
an Arab, and you already talk like one of us/'
After this I was treated with a certain deference.
Hussein eyed my camera. "We would like you to take our
pictures," he said.
This was what I had hoped for. I took a shot of Hussein
with a group of his associates, and then we went outside,
where I photographed him seated proudly at the wheel of his
green Ford. One of the men introduced to me as Hassan
Sobhy, an officer of Misr el Fattat, took me aside. "I am an
important man around here/' he said. "Take a big picture of
me." I did so.
Later, back in the headquarters, while I was talking to
Sobhy, he interrupted the conversation to spread a newspaper
on the floor and go through the series of knee-bending after-
noon prayers. A faithful Moslem is required to pray five times
a d a y the first prayer before sunrise, or if that is not possible,
66 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
at least early in the morning, followed by prayers in early after-
noon, late afternoon, at sundown, and again an hour after sun-
set, in each instance accompanied by appropriate obeisances,
or rak'aa.
The pictures I took turned out well, and eventually I photo-
graphed nearly every Green Shirt of importance. As I walked
in and out of headquarters, almost daily, I was trusted more
and more. I discovered the Green Shirts had adequate finances
from political leaders, sheikhs, and others. A wealthy Cairo
landowner had sponsored Hussein's trip to the United States.
The Green Shirts were largely financed by Jew-hating indi-
viduals and organizations formed to combat Zionism and the
formation of the new Jewish state. According to the April 19,
1948 issue of Misr el Fattat, former Prime Minister Ali Maher
Pasha, who was interned during the war for "reasons relating
to the safety and security of the State," contributed 200.
ST. PATRICK'S DAY WITH THE GREEN SHIRTS
A FEW days later, without explanation, Hussein said: "Be
sure you are with us tomorrow. Bring your camera."
Tomorrow was St. Patrick's Day and kismet had willed that
just that day I was to witness a Green Shirt parade through
Cairo's streets the like of which no Irishman ever dreamed.
Early the next afternoon we drove off in Hussein's Ford,
across one of the bridges spanning the languid Nile, to a large
open field. Youths in the Green Shirt "Boy Scout" uniforms
were already lined up with banners and trumpets, waiting for
their fuehrer. Two plainclothesmen who suddenly appeared at
my elbow began to glare at me. I appealed to Hussein.
"Do not worry, I will explain that you are our official pho-
tographer," he said. "They will be with you all afternoon." To
be sure I would have no trouble, he produced a green beret
carrying the Misr el Fattat insigne, and I wore it.
Green Shirts and Red Fezzes 67
A dust cloud became visible in the distance. A welcoming
shout went up. It turned out to be a column of soldiers,
marching with their banners in the wind a contingent of
about two hundred volunteers bound for Palestine under Misr
el Fattat auspices. They were dressed in war-surplus khaki and
the Arab headpiece consisting of the flowing white shawl,
khaffiya, held down around the temples by twin black cords.
Their faces were bronzed By the Nile sun, their hands bony
from toil. They were fellaheen those lowest in the social
scale, usually tenant-slave farmers or unskilled workers. They
joined the Green Shirt columns, and together marched past a
guard of honor of Green Shirt officials. I began to photograph
the scene with one policeman behind me, the other at my
side. Suddenly, as the massed banners and flags passed by, a
dozen Green Shirt arms shot out in the old-fashioned Fascist
salute. To snap or not to snap! What would the police say?
Nervously, I took two photographs of the saluting soldiers.
Nothing happened.
As the contingents marched toward the Nile, I jumped into
Hussein's car with Sheikh Mahmoud Abou el Azaayim, a
wealthy Egyptian who was financing the volunteers. We drove
ahead to Hussein's home on the other side of the bridge. His
apartment commanded a magnificent view of the Nile, and
the famous Pyramids of Giza in the distance.
'Take a picture of my daughters," Hussein said. "I have
named them Faith and Liberty." Hussein's wife was nowhere
in evidence, faithful to the Moslem tradition that no decent
woman ever shows her face to strangers. In his military dress
and cap, hands on hips, jaw stuck out, Hussein on the balcony
of his home imitated II Duce. Hussein had neither the girth,
the stature, the jaw, nor the snarl of the Italian Fascist whom
he admired and tried to emulate.
It was now the turn of Sheikh el Azaayim to pose for me.
In our country, thanks to Hollywood, the word "sheikh" sug-
gests a virile, handsome son of the desert dashing about on a
full-blooded Arab charger. Undoubtedly there are some Val-
6 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
entino-like sheikhs. Nearly all I saw were quite the opposite. 1
The sheikh took his place on Hussein's balcony and stood at
attention, reviewing his troops. Even in the glorious Nile sun-
set that transformed the whole Giza area into magic beauty,
he appeared to be what he was one of the ugliest men in
Egypt-
He was a stunted man, somewhat over five feet tall, draped
in a black cape reaching to his ankles. His fez was wound
around with a creamy white linen fabric so that only the red
top showed. His beady little eyes, embedded in a sickly, yel-
low-brown face, looked at me craftily. A scraggly mustache
covered his upper lip, and a thin beard the nakedness of his
receding chin. His lips were thick, his ears large. The little
man showed his full glory when he opened his mouth, reveal-
ing a set of long, uneven, canine-shaped yellow teeth, and
sending forth a variety of unpleasant odors.
But I did not underestimate the sheikh. He was wealthy,
owning extensive share-cropping lands in El Minya, south of
Cairo. He claimed descent (more common than our May-
flower cult) directly from Mohammed, the Prophet. His
fellaheen believed that he was immortal, and therefore im-
mune to bullets, and that his touch bestowed upon them a
similar state of grace. Consequently, not only because of
Egypt's social laws, but also because of his own exalted per-
son, Sheikh el Azaayim owned his slaves body and soul.
Blinded by fanaticism, believing themselves bearing charmed
lives, and hopelessly untrained for war, they were now being
sent by him to slaughter. He called them Followers of Truth.
"I shall lead them in battle personally/' the sheikh ex-
plained to me through an Egyptian army captain who had
joined us. Obviously taking no stock in his own immortality,
or in that of his men, he added: "I will be with them to the
end. If they fall, others will come. It has so been arranged. If
1 Sheikh is the title given the headman of a village, or a religious author-
ity. The title today is loosely used.
Green Shirts and Red Fezzes 69
I die, after me my brother, after him my younger brother, and
so on down the family line until Palestine is liberated/ 7
As we watched from the balcony, the Followers of Truth
marched across the bridge in long thin columns, their khaffiyas
flowing in the wind, their banners proclaiming in huge Arabic
letters: GO AND FIGHT THE JEWS . . . THE ARMY OF ALLAH
GOING TO FREE PALESTINE ... I WANT TO COME WITH YOU.
While the two fuehrers stood side by side with me, waving
from the balcony, the columns marched to Misr el Fattat
headquarters.
That St. Patrick's night, I witnessed the weirdest briefing
session any American could hope to see. Green Shirts and
Followers of Truth filled the courtyard, so that not even a
crow could find a resting-place. On the iron fence was a ban-
ner, reading: THE ARMY OF MOHAMMEDAN GOD. FOR THE LIB-
ERATION OF PALESTINE. The light from two gas-lamps eerily
highlighted the bronzed features and the white headdress of
these Nile warriors, as a half dozen orators waited to set off
the fiery flames of a Holy War.
From eight o'clock on, for two hours, speaker after speaker
mesmerized them with the most extraordinary supercharged
emotional oratory I have heard in ten years of hearing the best
among our worst Americans. The average Arab is highly emo-
tional and responds quickly to the rhythm of poetry, and the
passion of oratory. The Arabic language itself is highly poetic.
In addition, its repetitious phrases, its changing cadence from
deep guttural to sustained high-pitched tremolo, conveys a
deep, earthy, angry explosiveness. The effect over a period of
time is overpowering. It seemed to me the words were like
savage thrusts into the night. They were like flying stilettos
jabbing at my senses. I understood only a few words Allah,
Yahood, Falastine (Palestine), attl, attl (kill, kill), Mu/ahed
(Holy Warrior), Jehad (Holy War) but I felt the impact
of every word, and the crackling thunder of every sentence as
it ripped and lashed out into the night
70 CAJHO TO DAMASCUS
One speaker was a true firebrand. He was a thin wisp of a
man, with a small, thin, pointed beard. His long deep-copper-
colored face glowed with religious frenzy. His eyes, long-lashed
and mystic, were half-shut when he spoke, the lids velvety as
if touched by purple eye-shadow. He made no gestures and
scarcely moved even his head. He mixed pure fire with his
words, and as he spoke he swayed slightly with the fluid
rhythm of his words, as a cobra sways, at times speaking in a
kind of hypnotic singsong half prayer, half chant then sud-
denly, his voice as brutal as a mailed fist, he exhorted, de-
manded, beat with the hammer of his eloquence on the ears
of his men to fight for Allah and His Prophet. His words were
like the thunder of a savage symphony, piercing the listeners
and the darkness beyond, awakening every ear that heard the
extraordinary virulence of his extraordinary passion. . . .
As he finished, the bowels of the earth seemed to explode.
The roar that came from the frenzied listeners is utterly un-
describable to American ears. The least I can say is that it was
like the snarling of volcanic monsters, bloodcurdling, awe-
some. The white-turbaned faces, roasted under the Nile sun,
burned with the zealous fire of Islam; wherever I looked men
stood screaming, shouting, eyes bloodshot, ready at that mo-
ment to tear out the hearts of their foe with bare hands in the
name of Allah and the Holy War.
From the balcony an arm rose high, commanding silence.
In the hushed moment that followed, a voice crackled: "Ah-
med Hussein!"
Hussein was an intense speaker. With powerful gestures
and deep emotion he reinflamed the religious frenzy of his
listeners.
"Death to Palestine's Jews!" he bellowed.
"Death to Palestine's Jews!" the mob roared back.
He exhorted them against British occupation of the Suez
and the Sudan. The mob thundered its approval. As Hussein
snded with the familiar words, Jehadf, attl/ attl/ the same
vibrant voice in the rear called out in Arabic:
Green Shirts and Red Fezzes 71
"Hussein, our leader; Hussein, our savior; Hussein, protec-
tor of Egypt!"
Once again the monsters thundered into the night, the
echoes reverberating from Cairo's moon-bathed rooftops.
The briefing was over. The Holy War was launched. The
emotional crescendo on which this rally had ended found
everyone perspiring, ecstatic, savage, ready to dismember any
Jew, or burn his home. I could understand now how it was
possible, after such meetings, for inflamed mobs to pour into
Cairo's Jewish quarter, and smash and destroy Jewish shops.
Hussein himself had incited a number of such riots on Fri-
day, the Moslem Sunday, after his prayers. Cairo police with
black shields and long black whips stopped such riotings
after the "patriotic" fury had spent itself.
MY MEETING WITH MOUSTAFA
LATER in the night I met Moustafa. He was to remain my
friend throughout my sojourn with the Arabs, and save me
from many a dangerous situation. I believe that if I were to
meet Moustafa today despite my many references to him,
some uncomplimentary he would embrace me as a friend,
and not thrust a knife in me.
Moustafa wasn't much to look at, and my nose usually told
me when he was near. He was a tall, well-muscled man of
twenty-eight, with a deep-olive skin, a flat nose and a long
upper lip covered with a bristly mustache that always looked
like an untrimmed hedge. His eyes were like blazing coals,
even when he was relaxed. He could become savage, as 1 was
to witness on the Palestinian front later. The best I can say
about Moustafa's sex life is that, although he was fully normal
in the Western sense, he was also normal in the Arabic sense.
Moustafa had the usual vices common to man and soldier.
What made him unusual were the virtues of loyalty, honesty,
and a kindliness that he displayed unfailingly toward me.
72 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
I liked this big shaggy soldier the minute I saw him. Thougt
his hand played tricks, it was never with my possessions
Basically his character was honest and simple, uncorrupted b}
the greed and venality about him. Moustafa never professec
to be religious: I never saw him kneel in prayer. A one-time
captain in the Egyptian army, he had been born into a farm-
ing family of small landowners. They had given him a good
elementary-school education, and in addition he could read
and write English rare among Egyptians. But he was a
natural-born fighter and detested farm work. When I met him
he had just returned from an expedition: his next assignment
due to come within a few weeks was to lead the Green
Shirt contingents and Followers of Truth into Palestine and
make guerrilla attacks on Jewish outposts.
I had planned to go later to Palestine by myself; but when
I heard this news, I made a quick decision. How much better
to go with Moustafa and his men! How much better to be an
intimate part of the Arab guerrilla movement, than to go as
the typical reporter, always the outsider and stranger. I
broached the subject to Moustafa. "I will come along as your
photographer/' I suggested. A few days later, after we found
we hit it off well together, he agreed. When he and his men
would leave for Palestine, I would go with them.
"I will arrange it with Ahmed Hussein," Moustafa said.
I quizzed him on his views on Zionism.
"We are fighting because Palestine is our land and we want
to die there. Even if all the world helps the Jews we know we
will win because our God is the strongest. We are not afraid
to die. The Jews are cowards because they want to live. The
Arab would rather lose ten men than one gun. The Jews are
the opposite. They want to save their lives and lose their guns.
That is one difference between us. Besides, we have plenty of
money/' Moustafa went on. "Plenty of ammunition. Plenty
of men. We even have a Tiger tank we stole from the British/*
"How did you manage that?"
"We paid 500 to English soldiers who were riding in the
Green Shirts and Red Fezzes 73
tank. They stopped and went into the bushes where we paid
them the money. When they came out the tank was gone.
Don't think we are without friends/ 7 Moustafa continued,
"We have English deserters and Germans fighting with us.
They make some of our bombs. We also have Czechs and
Yugoslavs spying for us. They go right into Tel Aviv and tell
us how things are. They are fine spies/'
At Green Shirt headquarters, Moustafa introduced me to a
fiery Egyptian who was training the volunteers. His name was
Izzed-een Abdul Kader. He told me, Moustafa interpreting,
that he had once tried to kill Nahas Pasha, now prime minister
of Egypt, because Nahas opposed the Green Shirts. "They put
him in jail for that," Moustafa said dolefully, while Izzed-een
watched me with his little, suspicious, red-rimmed eyes. "He
is willing to kill anybody who is an enemy of Misr el Fattat.
He is a very strong patriot."
"Will he kill me if he thinks I'm your enemy?" I asked
curiously.
Moustafa spoke to him, then turned to me and translated
his reply with a smile: "If he knows you to be a Jew or a spy,
he will not only kill you, but he will drink your blood/'
With this comforting thought I left Misr el Fattat head-
quarters for a long night of note-making. I had to arrange
matters so I could go along to Palestine with Moustafa and
his men. There were thousands of these volunteers and ad-
venturers from all the Arab countries, armed and financed by
pashas, sheikhs, or the Arab League, trained on Egyptian
army grounds by regular army officers on leave. Their role was
to harass the Jew, cut off his communications, isolate settle-
ments, strip and weaken him for the moment, now only a few
weeks off, when the British would leave Palestine and the en-
tire Arab world would declare a bloody, open season on the
Jew. Then the regular Arab armies would invade Palestine and
settle once and for all the impudent and fantastic Zionist
dream of a Jewish state on Arab soil.
Hussein had good news for me a few days later. Delighted
74 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
with my pictures of the parade, and also those of his daughters
Faith and Liberty, he insisted that I come along to a Green
Shirt rally to be held at nearby Damanhur. "In 1936 the peo-
ple there almost killed me because I was anti-British. Now
they are begging me to come and speak to them. Come and
see and bring your camera/'
A GLIMPSE OF NATIVE LIFE
WE DROVE to Damanhur, a few hours distant, and the trip
was an education in itself. I saw graphic evidence of the curses
that have tortured Egypt since the days of the Pharaohs
poverty, ignorance, disease, feudalism. I saw squat, sunbaked
villages with bleached mud huts, with streams of sewage flow-
ing into side canals. Swarms of half-naked children, their skin
covered with running sores, raced in and out of the huts and
the filth. In the fields, the fellaheen worked in back-breaking,
dawn-to-dark toil for three hundred and fifty-five days of the
year, with only ten days off for feast days. The mode of living,
agriculture, and irrigation had changed but little in the last
five thousand years. Their life expectation was less than thirty-
one years. 2 There were seventeen million fellaheen in Egypt
surely among the most miserable human beings on earth.
I saw these wretched subhuman Egyptians digging a ditch:
they were scooping the earth by hand and throwing it into
fiber baskets. I saw them irrigating a field: one fellah was
scooping water from the canal into an earthen pot, passing it
to a fellah above him, who poured it into the irrigation ditch.
I saw a young woman squat along the road and pass her water:
then she let her skirts fall, and resumed her walk. Men and
children used the walls of their pathetic homes as public la-
trines. The nauseating odor of human urine and excrement
2 According to the World Health Organization report of August 10,
1949.
Green Shirts and Red Fezzes 75
followed us from Cairo to Damanhur and back. I saw an
elderly woman walking with a heavy steel rod balanced on her
head: riding ahead of her on a donkey was her husband. I saw
a fellah lying in the shade, a monkey neatly picking lice from
his master's head. As we drove past a train station, we saw
children who had tied a scrawny dog to the tracks and were
gleefully awaiting the approaching train. In a land where
children are beaten and abused, affection for an animal is un-
heard of, and savagery is the rule of life.
As I watched this changing yet always horrifying scene,
Hussein turned to me for a moment. "Well/* he said. "Now
you see a part of Egypt the tourist doesn't see. What do you
think of all this?"
I answered honestly. "Frankly, Ahmed, I'm shocked."
"Only a revolution can change it. The Young Egypt Party
will do it some day/' Hussein said.
"Insh'allah, my friend, Insh'allah/ With God's help!"
We arrived in Damanhur early in the afternoon, and pro-
ceeded to a midarz, clearing, on one side of which was a
mosque topped by an extraordinarily lovely minaret. It was
the hour of prayer, and the muezzin was at his place on the
tiny balcony. With both hands cupped behind his ears, palms
to the front and forefingers up, he intoned the call to prayer
in a deep drawn-out, wailing chant: "Allah akbar, Allah akbar,
Allah akbar; ashadu an la ilaha illa-llah, ashadu anna Muham-
medarrasulullah. . . . Hayya'alas-sala. Allah is great, Allah is
great, Allah is great; testify there is no God but Allah and
Mohammed is his prophet. . . . Come to prayer/'
The Green Shirts were already on hand, with a small army
of police. Some Green Shirts carried daggers at their belts.
Others carried long heavy wooden bats. There was a horde of
bootblacks, and dispensers of purple and yellow fruit drinks,
serving all comers from two glasses given a token rinse now
and then in a pail of water. Scores of men were milling about
a huge tent, made colorful with oriental rugs draped from
the poles. This was a cool, snug inclosure, festooned with
76 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
flags and lined with chairs and benches. A large crowd was
already seated inside. Within half an hour the tent was
packed. The audience overflowed upon the midan, with grimy,
barefooted children dressed in tatters swarming about its
edges.
I thought it significant that most of the crowd of about two
thousand were young people, under forty. A variety of speak-
ers, ranging from youths to seasoned rabble-rousers, harangued
them. Two orators ended their speeches with the Fascist
salute. Hussein, in excellent form, spoke on "The Strength
of Power/' After him he was applauded and cheered to the
echo I heard the poet laureate of Misr el Fattat, a handsome
man with long, flowing hair. I have never listened to poetry
recited with more compelling eloquence. I could understand
only a few words, of course, but I found myself almost as
moved as his audience. Here was art made universal, and
translation almost superfluous. Time and again he was stopped,
and compelled to recite entire stanzas over and over. The
audience listened enraptured, breaking in with shouts of en-
couragement, or ecstatically moaning: "Allah! Allah!" and
"YafiyaJ Yahya/ Live on. Live on. May your kind multiply."
Later I had one of the poems translated:
I see Palestine thirsty for water.
I call to it: Come, Palestine, drink with me,
Because I have a large quantity of water.
Come Palestine, come Palestine,
And bring with you your fire
To set me on fire. Old iron takes its strength with fire.
Pour your fire in my heart and breast.
We are as dust in air. America never cared for us,
And commanded that all the Jews in the world
Be collected and placed on our frontier as a flag of victory.
What are we going to do?
If we remain asleep, time is lost, and heaven,
Green Shirts and Red Fezzes 77
Which we think makes all things, never works for a lazy man.
Heaven says: Begin your work, and I continue for you!
As we drove back, I complimented Hussein on his success.
"Twelve years ago they nearly killed me in Damanhur/' he
said triumphantly. '"Twelve years from now I will come again
as the Kemal Ataturk of Egypt/'
Decorum demanded that I say again: "Insh'allah, Insh'-
aBah."
(CHAPTER IV)
THE MOSLEM (BLACK) BROTHERHOOD
"Ours is the highest ideal, the holiest cause and the
purest way. Those who criticize us have fed from
the tables of Europe. They want to live as Europe
has taught them to dance, to drink, to revel, to
mix the sexes openly and in public."
Sheikh Hassan el Banna
Supreme Guide, Moslem Brotherhood
A FEW days later Moustafa looked at me and said: "Artour,
when you first came we thought you were a spy because you
looked like an American. Now I gaze at your face. I find it is
as dark as ours. You have a mustache. You dress like us. You
eat with us. You are one of us, Artour. I can now call you
akhi, brother/' With this Moustafa placed his hand on my
shoulder affectionately. I had "arrived."
It delighted me to know this, for it meant I had taken on
sufficient Arab coloration to attempt getting inside the Ikhwan
el Muslimin the Moslem (often called the Black) Brother-
hood 1 the ultra-fanatically religious Moslem group, which
even the Green Shirts feared, and which they suspected had
placed the bomb that exploded in front of their headquarters
the day I first called on Hussein. The Moslem Brotherhood
was, in fact, far larger, far more powerful, and far more deadly
x The American organization called "The Moslem Brotherhood of the
U.S.A." has no connection with the Ikhwan el Muslimin. My references are
to the Egyptian organization only.
The Moslem (Black) Brotherhood 79
than the Green Shirts. Most of its members wore beards, be-
cause Mohammed had worn one, and the day after Moustafa
spoke to me I began to raise a beard in preparation for my ad-
venture in fanaticism.
The next week Hussein glared at me angrily when I came
to see him.
"Shave off your beard!" he snapped. "The political police
will think you are trying to change your appearance. Besides,
you are beginning to look like a member of the Ikhwan." The
Ikhwan, he said, was a curse upon Egypt "They are dangerous.
They always look backward. We look forward. Egypt will
never progress by looking back over its shoulder and trying to
live in yesterday's world." And he added: "I tell you, shave
it off now if you want to remain with us."
Ma'alesli/ No matterl I shaved off the beard.
Hussein had nothing but hatred for Sheikh Hassan el
Banna, the Moorshid, or Supreme Guide of the Ikhwan.
Hussein spoke of him as the Rasputin of Egypt. They charged
him with accepting money from the British as well as the
Communists. They ascribed to him many immoralities, sexual
and otherwise, as well as violence and intrigues without num-
ber. And the Ikhwan had no love for the Green Shirts.
To me this made the challenge all the more intriguing. I
went ahead with undercover plans to gain the confidence of
the Ikhwan. This meant keeping the left hand from knowing
what the right was doing, for Ikhwan headquarters were only
a short block away. If I were seen there by Hussein's scouts, I'd
be charged with consorting with the enemy. If Ikhwan prowl-
ers saw me at Green Shirt headquarters, they would suspect
me of collaborating with Hussein, whom they considered a
pro-Western quisling because of his visits to Europe and the
United States. The Ikhwan had its own smear methods. A
critic or opponent was not called a "Communist" or a "Jew";
he was damned as a "European who has eaten the crumbs
from the tables of Europe."
I had heard that El Banna had a large following among the
80 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
students of Fouad University. This gave me an idea. Might
not Gamal be a member Gamal, one of the two bearded
students who had followed me the second time I had been
arrested for taking pictures? I had put his address aside with
little thought that it would ever be useful.
I called upon him in one of the native residential sections
of the city, and he greeted me warmly and ceremoniously.
"Ahhh, welcome, American friend who loves the Arab cause/'
he intoned. "Allah yaateek el-afiah. Mit ahlan wa sahlan. May
God grant you good health. Welcome a hundred times/'
"Moutta shakker. Allah yebarek feek. Thank you. May God
bless you/' I said, using the Arab phrases Moustafa had been
teaching me. "I have come to ask your help to meet Sheikh
Hassan el Banna, who I have heard is a great and noble man.
I wish to bring the Moorshid the greetings of Americans who
are one with the Arab cause/'
My hunch was right. Gamal was a member of the Ikhwan.
He would be happy, he said, to arrange matters. Would I meet
him the following night at nine p.m. at Ikhwan headquarters?
This seemed perfect, for Green Shirt scouts would be less
likely to see me going there at night.
The next evening a taxi brought me noisily to a large two-
story white house, its ornate Moorish architecture etched in
the moonlight. There was a guardhouse at the corner. A high
iron fence surrounded the building. All about were dark,
bearded figures in gallabiyas and others in the garb of El
Azhar (Moslem Theological Seminary) students. Two uni-
formed policemen with rifles stood at the entrance. The dim
light from a corner street-lamp made the square and the
figures lurking in the shadows an eerie and conspiratorial
scene. Apparently they were waiting for someone. I wondered
if they were waiting for me.
I approached the entrance slowly, with a little uneasiness at
the pit of my stomach, trying to sense intuitively what my
eyes could not see. Then I stopped, and waited. One of the
policemen strolled over to me. For a moment it seemed as if
The Moslem (Black) Brotherhood 81
dark, mysterious figures were closing in on all sides. I called
out sharply in a loud voice: "Gamal houna? Where is Gamal?"
At the mention of Gamal's name, the crowd seemed to melt
away; two men came up to me, ceremoniously led me into
a courtyard, then up a flight of stairs to a room on the second
floor. There Gamal waited, with half a dozen other youths,
all bearded like himself.
He shook hands cordially.
"You have made us happy tonight by your visit," he said,
and introduced me to the others. They were all fellow students
at Fouad University. Then he ordered coffee.
"We know another American. He has written us/' one of
the Arabs said.
"Maybe I know him/' I remarked. "What's his name?"
The student produced a letter addressed to "Shawa Pasha"
of the Moslem Brotherhood, and signed by William T. Frary
of Boston. Beginning "In the name of Allah, the Merciful/'
Frary went on to offer his public-relations services to the
Ikhwan. 2
2 William T. Frary, 42, was adopted by a woman twice his age, the
Baroness Adelheid Maria von Blomberg, "daughter of Baron Hugo von
Blomberg, poet and painter of renown/' according to Frary. Frary-von Blom-
berg achieved some notoriety in 1942 while addressing the Hempstead, Long
Island, Rotary Club, when he asserted that "Nazi troops are well disciplined
and are incapable of committing atrocities." This and other remarks were
construed as pro-Nazi and aroused Rotary members to protest his talk as
"German propaganda."
In a publicity release prepared by himself, the former Boston press
agent touted himself as a "business executive" and "international relations
counsel." He claimed to have been public-relations counsel to the National
Restaurant Association, the National Fisheries Association, and the Armenian
National Committee, a defunct adjunct of the Armenian Revolutionary Fed-
eration.
He stated he had been "sent on a special mission to the Vatican, Ger-
many, and London; accompanied Balkan Investigation Committee in Greece";
visited "Arabia as guest of the Saudi-Arabian Government and Aramco . . .
appointed spokesman for twelve million German expellees, honorary member
Polish Home Army, US, delegate for Society for Defense of Christianity."
He claimed to have "conferred" with the Duke of Windsor, General Franco,
General de Gaulle, Chancellor Figl of Austria, and Marshal Mannerheim of
Finland.
82 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
"He was here; he knows the Arab subject very well/' the
Arab said.
I was ruminating on what a small world this was after all,
when I was asked if I knew "Sheikh Lutz." The name was
strangely familiar.
"I once met an American in California who became a
Moslem/' I said. "Could it be . . ."
"The very same. His name was Lutz. We gave him a Mos-
lem name Sheikh Abdur Rahman Lutz. He is a Moslem
Brother."'
I had met Edward Abdur Rahman Lutz in San Francisco.
He was a burly man with an innocent face, a former Sunday-
school teacher in a Congregational church. He had become
impressed with "the compassion, the charity of the true Mos-
lem/' while working with an oil company in Saudi Arabia,
and became a convert to Mohammedanism. He hoped to
found a mosque in Sacramento. In the name of "God, the
Merciful, the Compassionate/' he was also out to collect ten
million dollars to establish an Islamic university; he told me
he also made suggestions to various Arab embassies to improve
their public relations.
By the time I was ready to leave the students I had made
such progress that it was agreed that I should have the privi-
lege of meeting the Moorshid himself the next day. Gamal
meanwhile explained that the Ikhwan had 350,000 members
and 1,500 branches in Egypt alone. He estimated there were
an additional 150,000 members outside Egypt.
"We believe only in the teachings and the ways of the
Koran," Gamal explained. "All truth is in the Koran. We be-
lieve the Arab nations have failed to win their independence
because they have fallen from the teachings of the Koran. All
that is modern goes against the Koran and is therefore dan-
gerous to Egypt."
The next day, although I showed up at the appointed time,
8 It must not be assumed that Lutz necessarily shared the political views
or condoned the terrorist practices of the Ikhwan.
The Moslem (Black) Brotherhood 83
neither Gamal nor El Banna appeared. I was disappointed, but
was not too put out, for most Arabs are rather careless about
keeping appointments. It's not unusual for them to be an hour
or two late. Fortunately, I found one of the English-speaking
students whom I had met the night before.
"Assalamu aleikum," he said. "Peace be upon you/'
"Wa aleilcum salam," I answered, "And upon you peace."
I made myself at home in a large reception room in order
to study the faces about me. It was an interesting if not en-
tirely comforting sight. I was surrounded by what were un-
doubtedly some of Egypt's most vicious thugs, who were
studying me with as much grim interest as I was them. Here
were zealots of every description ultra-nationalist, ultra-
religionist, ultra-fanatic Moslems who had vowed to make
every day a day of Jehad against nonbelievers. From every
Arab country, from North Africa to Pakistan, they were flow-
ing into the Cairo headquarters: Arab trigger-men carrying
daggers and pistols; men from the Sudan with their cheeks
slashed; fighters from the Sinai desert; recruiters from Pales-
tine; gun-runners; spies; lice-ridden Bedouins from everywhere.
Greasy, bearded men with diseased eyes and mutilated faces,
crude and barbaric, all sat sullenly, sizing up the Amrikani.
The fires of fanaticism had consumed them deeply, and the
flames had burned out all warmth and humanity from their
faces. They said nothing only sat there in sullen silence in
my presence. The most antif oreign, murderous crew in Egypt,
to whom nothing counted but the Koran, the sword of Islam,
and the dictates of their Moorshid Compared to these, it
seemed to me, Hussein's Green Shirt legions were cherubic
angels.
"MY MEN WILL TEACH YOU TO KILL"
SEATED next to me was a fiercely mustachioed giant of a
man, with a face bronzed by the desert sun, his eyes fearless
84 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
and hawklike. I could tell by his gray turban and flowing, gray-
black burnous that he was a Bedouin from the desert, and at
the same time a sheikh of El Azhar. I had caught a glimpse of
him the previous night. Now he was whiling away his time
by toying with the sibha, a string of large oval amber beads,
used by the Arabs to count their prayers and also to work off
nervous energy. Fascinated, I watched his enormous hands,
capable of choking a throat as easily as crushing an egg, as he
endlessly slipped bead after bead through his fingers. He put
away the beads and dug his hand deep into the folds of a
pocket inside the voluminous burnous. It emerged with a
handful of heavy-caliber bullets. His other hand dipped, and
came out clutching a Belgian automatic. He placed this in
his lap and patted it fondly.
"Allah! I paid 20 for this, and I won't have my money's
worth until I have killed twenty Jews. One pound, one Jew/*
This pleasant observation was translated for me by another
neighbor, a police lieutenant who had replaced my student
friend. I suspected he had taken a seat near me to watch me
more closely, and I played my hand accordingly.
"How many have you killed so far?" I asked the Bedouin.
"With my rifle, four. With the knife, two/' He held up his
fingers each time. "That is not enough in the sight of Allah.
I have come to Cairo to buy heavy arms. With these we shall
have a blood feast." He apparently took a fancy to me. "You
are the first American I have liked," he said. "You do not dis-
play Western manners. You do not have superior ways. I feel
toward you as a brother. You talk like an Arab. Allah, you look
like an Arab. I want you to visit me in the Negev," he said
quite suddenly. He was evidently in earnest, because he gave
me his name, which I carefully copied down Sheikh Younis
Hussein Mohammed and detailed instructions for reaching
his desert stronghold, near Falouja, above the Palestine-Egyp-
tain border. Leaning over, he asked what kind of gun I carried.
"I shoot only with my cameras," I said. "I need no guns."
"You are a brave American, but not a wise one/' Sheikh
:>
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86 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
Mohammed said. "Visit me, and my men will teach you to
kiU."
"You will be afraid to go/' the police lieutenant put in.
"You will have fear of the Jews/'
"I have no fears/' I said. "I have faith, just as you have
faith in Allah. With Allah at my side I have passed many dan-
gers. Soon I shall leave with many volunteer fighters for the
Jehad in Palestine. I shall stay until all Palestine is liberated
from the Zionist Jews/'
"Those are beautiful words/' the sheikh said, after they had
been translated loudly not only to him but to the entire grim
audience about me.
"I fear but one thing/' I went on, pressing my advantage,
"to do evil against my fellow man to steal, to lie, to cheat.
These I will not do, for I believe them to be sinful in the
sight of Allah, and an invitation for just retribution upon my
head. To do good to my brother and expose the evil in man
those are my missions in life/'
"Those are the very words of the Koran/' The lieutenant
looked at me entranced. My effusions were duly translated,
to the grunting satisfaction of those present, as indicated by
repeated murmurs of "Allah/ Allah/" I had told the lieutenant
I was a writer of books. He asked me what kind of books.
"Political books against the Jew," I said. This also he
hastened to translate.
"I shall be honored to have a copy," he said. "I am a very
deep Moslem. I believe very deeply in the Koran."
"I shall send you a copy of my next book," I said. "I will
write of the virile qualities of the Arab, the justness of his
cause, his manliness in battle." I did not hesitate to be lavish:
this was no time or place to be subtle.
"Hallet el-baralca. Hallet el-baraka/ the police lieutenant said
over and over. "What a blessing from Allah. The blessing has
truly descended!"
"EI-barafca aleilcum/' I responded, raising my eyes to heaven.
"The blessing be on you." I was learning Arab ways.
The Moslem (Black) Brotherhood 87
I decided to leave on this pleasant note, lest I overplay my
hand. As I stood up, half the room rose in respect to the
American who looked, talked, and thought like an Arab.
Solemnly I shook hands with my new-found friends, the
lieutenant and the sheikh, and renewed my pledge to visit
the latter in the desert. The lieutenant gave me his address and
telephone number and vowed to get me out of any trouble I
might find myself in.
As I kept visiting Ikhwan headquarters, it became increas-
ingly difficult to enter the building inconspicuously, and my
fear grew of detection by the Green Shirts, only a block away.
I made it a point to keep away from Ahmed Hussein and the
members (though I telephoned frequently) until I had fin-
ished my investigations of the Ikhwan.
My fame spread to such an extent that on succeeding days
I was allowed to use my camera and to speak freely to anyone
I wished at Ikhwan headquarters privileges surely never be-
fore accorded to a non-Moslem. I walked in and out of the
building, picking up items of information and piecing them
together. I had not yet met the Moorshid. But I met other
memorable characters. Among them was a thug who said
gloatingly to me, pointing to a new automatic he had just
bought: "This is for the Jew in battle. But this/' pointing
to a dagger "is for the Jew in Cairo."
Another was Mahmoud Bey Labib, chief recruiting officer
and trainer of Ikhwan volunteer fighters, who had lived in
Germany for a while. Labib Bey was disappointed that I did
not speak German fluently. He knew English, but had taken
an oath not to speak it "until the last Englishman has left
Egyptian soil/' he told me through an interpreter. "I am
against everything British, and that includes their cursed
tongue. If I say one word in English by mistake, I must wash
my mouth till every trace disappears."
Labib Bey was square-faced, surly, and apparently angry at
the world as well as himself. He always appeared in a trench
coat and carried leather gloves, after the fashion of the Nazi
88 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
bully-boys in Germany. "Everything in Germany was fine be-
fore they were defeated and it took the whole world to de-
feat them. Everything the Nazis made was good, like that
camera you have/' He added: "Our boys believe that by fight-
ing the Jew they will make a place for themselves in paradise.
We will not leave Palestine until the last Zionist Jew is
silenced/'
Like the Green Shirts, the Moslem Brotherhood also had its
volunteer fighters. Labib Bey told me there were at least
twenty thousand. lihwan el Muslimin, the Brotherhood news-
paper, described how one Palestine-bound contingent had
fared:
Last Sunday was one of Allah's days in Port Said, for at one
o'clock in the morning there arrived the Cairo train filled with
people going to fight in the Holy War of Palestine. These
faithful believers jumped on to the platform in Port Said, each
carrying his own belongings, and marched in line to the Mos-
lem Brothers' House as compact as the stones of a building.
They were enthusiastically and energetically prepared to go on
their way to the field of action and to fight for Allah. It was.
lovely to hear them singing: "Struggle is our way, and to die
for Allah our highest ideal/'
There was even a women's unit of the Ikhwan a rare
phenomenon in a country where women are relegated mainly
to the kitchen and the fields. The Moorshid addressed them
through a screen. Merchants were compelled to contribute
to the Brotherhoods, often on the threat of reprisals, and 1
there seemed to be no stratum of Cairo life that was not in-
timidated by them. I gained an inkling of the respect in which
the Ikhwan was held one afternoon when my cab driver made
a turn against traffic, and was roundly bawled out by a police-
man. My driver broke into the rushing torrent of words long,
enough to utter a short sentence. The policeman shut up so
quickly he almost bit his tongue. He made what appeared to
The Moslem (Black) Brotherhood 89
be an apology, saluted me respectfully, and cleared traffic for
us. We sped on.
"What did you say to him?" I asked.
"I told him you were an important official I was taking to
the Ikhwan."
Sheikh Hassan el Banna had powerful contacts in the gov-
ernment He received support from the Arab League, from
wealthy pashas and landowners who opposed Westernization
because it would bring with it the end of child labor, the pos-
sible awakening of the fellaheen, and the possible revolt of
workers who received wages as low as twenty cents a day. To
workers El Banna preached the urgency of getting "back to
the Koran," which, he pointed out carefully, made no pro-
vision for labor unions.
Several times a week hundreds of students from Fouad Uni-
versity and El Azhar would gather in the courtyard, and in
study groups inside the building, to be harangued by the
Moorshid himself, or by sheikhs sent specially by the Mufti.
They preached the doctrine of the Koran in one hand and the
sword in the other. It became clear to me why the average
Egyptian worshipped the use of force. Terror was synonymous
with power! This was one reason why most Egyptians, re-
gardless of class or calling, had admired Nazi Germany. It
helped explain the sensational growth of the Ikhwan el
Muslimin. Beyond Egypt, El Banna envisaged the union of
all Moslem countries into a gigantic Islamic power, with him-
self as caliph both political and religious leader of the Mos-
lem world. The newspaper Ikhwan el Muslimin put it this
way:
No justice will be dealt and no peace maintained on earth
until the rule of the Koran and the bloc of Islam are estab-
lished. Moslem unity must be established. Indonesia, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Trans-Jordan,
Palestine, Saudi-Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, Tripoli, Tunis,
90 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
Algeria and Morocco all form one bloc, the Moslem bloc,
which God has promised to grant victory, saying: "We shall
grant victory unto the faithful." But this is impossible to reach
other than through the way of Islam.
Those who charged that el Banna was also subsidized by
the British Middle East Office in Cairo declared that it was
British strategy to keep Egypt divided by political and reli-
gious strife: Egyptian anti-British feeling would then be lost
in the growing domestic hubbub. At the same time, these do-
mestic disturbances would justify keeping British troops in
Egypt in order to prevent possible revolution.
The Moorshid maintained espionage squads everywhere.
He also had a special assassin squad, entrusted with the duty
of liquidating political opponents. El Banna resented a ver-
dict that Judge Ahmed el Khazindar Bey meted out against a
Moslem Brother, and ordered him liquidated. One of the
Moorshicf s henchmen took care of this assignment, aided by
an assistant who pumped six bullets into the judge.
Under public pressure Cairo's police chief staged a few
raids and made a few arrests. El Banna was annoyed. He
ordered his terror squad to "teach the police chief a lesson/'
The latter was promptly killed by a hand grenade while on a
tour of inspection of Fouad University. When the president
of Fouad complained, he was denounced as a "European,"
publicly insulted, and narrowly missed being shot.
El Banna played for high stakes. Not content with liqui-
dating a judge and a police chief, he ordered Abdel Maguid
Ahmed Hassan, a twenty-three year old student and a mem-
ber of his terror squad, to carry out his duty to Allah. A re-
ligious sheikh told Hassan that the Koran sanctioned the
murder of the "enemies of Islam and of Arabism/' whereupon
Hassan dutifully swore to kill any traitor the Moorshid named.
Hassan retired and spent his days in meditation, prayer, and
preparation. On the tenth day after his oath he donned a
policeman's uniform and went to the Ministry of Interior,
The Moslem (Black) Brotherhood 91
where he waited for the Egyptian prime minister, Mahmoud
Fahmy el Nokrashy Pasha, to emerge. As soon as Nokrashy
Pasha appeared, followed by his bodyguard, Abdel whipped
out a pistol and shot the minister dead, his duty to the Moor-
shid and to Allah fulfilled, his place in heaven assured.
I MEET THE MOORSHID
ALL that I had learned about Hassan el Banna and the un-
questioned loyalty he inspired in his cutthroats only whetted
my desire to meet him. It proved more difficult than I ex-
pected, because of his deep hatred of "Europeans/* Finally
one day, accompanied by my friend Gamal, I walked into
Ikhwan headquarters for my audience with the Supreme
Guide.
He approached us a short, squat ratty-faced man with
puffed cheeks and fleshy nose. He was dressed in European
clothes a black pinpoint double-breasted suit and wore an
extra tall tarboosh, which gave him the illusion of added
height. His thin beard, running from ear to ear, crawled up,
then down his upper lip like an ugly black hirsute vine. His
manner was mousy and furtive. His eyes, beadlike and deep-
set, were like two dark slits across his face. We sat in the
shade, under the shield showing the Koran above a pair of
crossed swords.
The Moorshid spoke with a pious look on his face, his head
bent slightly to the right, hands folded meekly in his lap. I
disliked him instantly and thoroughly. He was the most loath-
some man I had yet met in Cairo. Gamal sat next to us and
faithfully interpreted.
"The Koran should be Egypt's constitution, for there is no
law higher than Koranic law/' the Moorshid began. "We seek
to fulfill the lofty, human message of Islam which has brought
happiness and fulfillment to mankind in centuries past. Ours
is the highest ideal, the holiest cause and the purest way.
92 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
Those wfco criticize us have fed from the tables of Europe.
They want to live as Europe has taught them to dance, to
drink, to revel, to mix the sexes openly and in public."
I asked his views on establishing the Caliphate, the com-
plete merger of Church and State the Moslem equivalent of
religious totalitarianism, as in Spain.
"We want an Arabian United States with a Caliphate at its
head and every Arab state subscribing wholeheartedly to the
laws of the Koran. We must return to the Koran, which
preaches the good life, which forbids us to take bribes, to
cheat, to kill one's brother. The laws of the Koran are suitable
for all men at all times to the end of the world. This is the day
and this is the time when the world needs Islam most/'
I could not help making a mental note that the word
"Christian" has been similarly used and with similar fanati-
cism among Western exponents of authoritarianism.
''We are not eager to have a parliament of the representa-
tives of the people," the Supreme Guide continued, "or a
cabinet of ministers, unless such representatives and ministers
are Koranic Moslems. If we do not find them, then we must
ourselves serve as the parliament. Allah and the religious coun-
cils will limit our authority so that no one has to fear dictator-
ship. We aim to smash modernism in government and society.
In Palestine our first duty as Moslems is to crush Zionism,
which is Jewish modernism. It is our patriotic duty. The Koran
commands it."
He was silent, and then nodded, to indicate the interview
was over. And with this Gamal and I took leave of Ikhwan's
MoorshidF and Egypt's Rasputin.
"What do you think of our Moorshid?" Gamal asked.
"He is a holy man," I said.
"It is good that you have met him yourself. Now you can
write the truth." He paused. "You must also visit Fouad Uni-
versity with me. We are very strong there. You will find it
very interesting. But we must be careful. They do not like
journalists. . . ."
(CHAPTER V)
BEHIND THE CORRESPONDENT'S
CURTAIN
"In what other country do you find eighty-five per
cent of the people illiterate? . . . Education means
social revolution. They dorit want us to think, to
speak out, or ask questions"
Students of Fouad University, Cairo
AT TEN o'clock the next morning I met Gamal at the
trolley-stop in front of Fouad, Egypt's leading university. To-
gether we walked toward the entrance. Here stood, side by
side, a solid phalanx of soldiers of the Royal Egyptian Army,
each armed with rifle, cartridge belt, metal helmet, and three-
foot long bamboo staves filled with lead. Behind them were
arrayed another row of soldiers, armed and carrying extra-long
(I judged them to be about ten feet) black rawhide whips
tapering to wired points. There was also an assortment of
police in the usual black uniforms, and a number of political
police and plainclothesmen. Every student had to show his
credentials to the commanding officer, then successively had
to run the gauntlet of checkpoints to the classrooms.
I began to understand what Gamal meant when he said:
'We must be careful." The guards looked at my papers and
shook their heads. For clearance we had to go to the Agouza
Police Station, located conveniently near by. A few paces
94 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
away a company of soldiers were resting, their leather whips
coiled like "black snakes around their feet. Some were chewing
on sugarcane stalks and listening to an officer reading a news-
paper.
"The soldiers are illiterate/' Gamal whispered. "Only the
officers read."
In the courtyard of the police station were scores of rein-
forcements, idling. They had guns, black shields, and the ever
present rawhide whips. We made our way, shunted from one
room to another, questioned by one police officer after an-
other, until we reached the major police factotum, at the mo-
ment busy brushing off a fly that was buzzing stickily around
his head.
He went through my pedigree with the thoroughness of the
FBI. Why did I want to visit the university? Because I was
an American university graduate, I was leaving tomorrow
(this of course was not true), and wanted to visit the dis-
tinguished Arabic institution of higher learning whose fame
had reached America. Surely I would not be denied this
honor. He made two telephone calls, after which he gave us
a slip of paper. This permit in hand, we walked toward a back
entrance, lined mostly with plainclothesmen and a few police.
The commanding officer called over the biggest man I had
laid eyes upon in Cairo, an extraordinarily powerful guard at
least seven feet tall. This Egyptian Goliath carried a pistol and
a short whip. With Gamal and me trailing, he led us across
the beautiful palm-strewn campus, past huddled groups of
students and watchful- detectives, and finally delivered us to
the mercies of a gang of political police, bristling with re-
volvers, whips, and handcuffs. After a brief interrogation we
were finally allowed to enter one of the classroom buildings.
I looked at my watch. It was 11.35 a.m. The ordeal had re-
quired an hour and thirty-five minutes.
I sat in on a class on civil law, There were about thirty
students, some wearing fezzes, and all listening to the lecture
with deep absorption. In the front rows were eight dark-eyed
Behind the Correspondent's Curtain 95
girls. One of them, short and plump, with gold earrings dan-
gling from pierced lobes, read a paper on "Debts of a Dead
Man/' Class was over at noon.
"Would you like to meet any of the professors?" Gamal
asked me. I said no. I wanted to give the police no reason to
report that an American was agitating among them. Gamal
left me for a while to seek a friend, and I found myself sur-
rounded by some of the students all male who spoke Eng-
lish. I told them at the outset that I would not answer ques-
tions. I was a "guest of your government/' and it would not
be proper for me to make any comments.
"It's not a government, it's a dictatorship," one of the boys
shot back. If I wanted proof, he said, in the 1945 elections,
the Saadist Party, then in power, had so terrorized the opposi-
tion, the Wafdist Party which stood for a progressive type
of Egyptian nationalism that the latter had refused to partic-
ipate. The Saadists had been easily re-elected. "The election
was a joke. The police had orders to beat anyone suspected of
wanting to vote against the regime. You can get anybody
killed or elected here/' he said bitterly. "All you need is to
have money and to know the right officials."
This seemed bold talk to me, but I found the students with
whom I spoke, unlike the generally lethargic populace, to be
alert and socially conscious. They were ashamed of the back-
wardness of their country, resentful at continued British oc-
cupation and intrigues, hateful of wealthy landowners who
perpetuated the feudal system, and they were constantly de-
manding drastic social reforms.
"We've just had another cholera epidemic," one of them
said angrily. "More than ten thousand died. Some of your
American serum saved the rest, for which we thank you. They
gave a banquet for the minister of health because so few had
died. That /ahsh donkey said that he still doesn't know
how the epidemic began. We can tell him. It began in our
own filthy cities."
"We want you to know the truth." This speaker was a well-
96 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
built young man with burning eyes. "The effendis want to hide
it from you. We want American advice. We want Marshall
Plan help, and we want you to help administer it so the people
will benefit. The effendis do not want this because they want
to keep the money for themselves. This class is not worthy of
Egypt. It is not worthy of your friendship. You in America,
turn your eyes to our people. Our people are your only friends."
"When you go back, tell this to America." Another student
suddenly spoke up. He quoted from a clipping from a Cairo
weekly, Roz-el Yusef: " 'Mohammed Barazi Ibrahim, chief
physician of Fouad University, has reported that only 7.5 per
cent of his students enjoy full health/ And listen to this: '92.5
per cent are afflicted with some kind of sickness; 50 per cent
have chest diseases including tuberculosis; 87 per cent suffer
from malnutrition; 84 per cent have anemia/ These are col-
lege students, remember. The common people are much worse
off/'
The first student said: "Did you ever hear of bilharziasis?"
The word seemed familiar. Somewhere I had read of a
grotesque disease, carried by snails, which some of our Ameri-
can soldiers had contacted during the war by swimming in the
Nile.
"That's right," he said, "Do you know that ninety per cent
of our fellaheen suffer from it most of their lives? It's a liver
fluke that gets into their systems. They begin passing blood
and they get used to passing blood all their days. It makes
them tired, apathetic, unambitious, and always feeling below
par. That's the curse of Egypt. Disease. Tuberculosis. Hook-
worm. Trachoma. Malaria. Filth that breeds disease. Poverty
that leads to filth. And social backwardness by our leaders
who are blind to anything but their own pleasures."
He spoke with such vehemence that a plainclothesman who
had been standing at the door of the classroom, eying me,
sauntered over and growled a question,
"He wants to know why we are talking to you/' one youth
Behind the Correspondent's Curtain 97
translated, "He doesn't think it is proper because you are a
foreigner/ 7
"I am only listening. You are talking to me/' I said.
The student who had cited the health statistics tugged at
my arm. "In what other country do you find eighty-five per
cent of the people illiterate? People are begging to go to
school, but there are no schools. There is only money for the
secret police and the pleasures of the pashas and officials/'
"Education means social revolution/' another put in. "They
don't want us to think, to speak out, or ask questions."
"Look at the army they've put in here to silence us. They
are more afraid of us than of the people," a third said.
During the discussion I had noticed a young man standing
by, listening intently but saying nothing. Just as Gamal re-
turned, the stranger approached me and, speaking excellent
English, asked: "What is your name, please, and where are
you staying?"
If he was an informer, and I refused to reply, I was sure he
would have me followed. On the other hand, by being frank
I might disarm him. So I gave him my name, and my room
number at the Continental.
"I shall visit you at four o'clock today," he said mysteri-
ously.
"I shall wait for you/' I said.
As we left, Gamal whispered, "All those boys are Com-
munists. They are modernists. They have been contaminated
by European ideas and corrupted by the West. They are as
bad as the Jews. We have had many fights with them."
I felt I had to make my position clear to Gamal. "I was
waiting for you when they began to talk to me. I said nothing
to them."
Gamal nodded. "It is all right," he said. "But never forget
you must be careful all the time."
We retraced our circuitous way back through the police
cordons, reporting at various checkposts until we finally
98 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
emerged from the grounds. I estimated that there were at
least five hundred soldiers and assorted police on duty. "Yes/*
said Gamal, "we also have Ikhwan members here. They watch
not only the students, but also some of the professors. They
are just as Communist as the students."
THE SLUMS OF CAIRO
THE mysterious student, whom I shall call Yusef, was in the
lobby of the Continental at exactly four o'clock. He lit the
cigarette I offered him and looked at me.
"How did you like our university with all those police?" he
asked.
I smiled noncommittally. "I hear you are a Communist."
"In Egypt every reformer is called a Communist," he re-
plied. He was a clean-cut, attractive young man of about
twenty-three, with brilliant black eyes, curly hair, and a great
earnestness about him. He had been jailed twelve times be-
cause he believed passionately in social reform. "Because I
think this, I am called a Communist," he said.
He explained that he believed in neither violence nor armed
revolution. He was a supporter of Ghandi's methods of "pas-
sive resistance" and "demonstration." He told me the Egyp-
tian government had sent soldiers to the university in Febru-
ary 1946, after more than twenty-five thousand students and
workers had staged a giant demonstration against the Saadist
regime. Seven had been killed and scores wounded in the
rioting. Numerous professors had been dismissed or trans-
ferred since then.
Yusef explained that he represented the "radical young
generation" that sought to divorce itself from Egyptian ultra-
conservatism and particularly from the straitjacket of Moslem
orthodoxy. He rarely attended religious services. "Worship is
something between God and myself. It is not necessary to
Behind the Correspondent's Curtain 99
make public parades of religion/' He was opposed to Zionism:
"It is not fair to divide in two a country which was held so
long by the Arabs. It is the British who caused the trouble by
making promises to both sides." He believed that Arab women
should be emancipated, and the veil done away with: "Why
should not my mother be treated as the equal of my father?"
This in itself was heretical to a devout Moslem, who con-
siders woman his inferior. As Yusef pointed out, the native
woman walks behind her husband, works for him, offers no
protests when beaten, and must be at his disposal at all times.
The ideal wife was one who bore male children and served as
an uncomplaining maid, mistress, and scapegoat. Husband-
and-wife relationship in the Western sense was largely un-
known. Romantic courtship and marriage for love were rare.
Equality of the sexes was regarded as "European" and there-
fore corruptive of the male. It was difficult for a woman to
get a divorce. But a man could obtain one simply by proclaim-
ing three times: "Aleilcy el-talaq. On you be the divorce." Re-
gardless of length of servitude, or illness, or financial status,
she must leave his bed and board usually leaving behind all
the male children, sometimes taking a few of the girls and
return to her family. Remarriage was almost impossible, for
the average Moslem would not take a wife worn out from
work. The Koran decrees that a Moslem may have four wives
at one time, as long as he can support them. Most Moslems
today, however, practice monogamy. Bedouin Sheikh Salman
el Huzeil married twenty-six wives before he died, underbid-
ding one of his antecedents who had changed wives twenty-
eight times.
"Before I am jailed again this time for talking with a for-
eign journalist," Yusef said after a while, "I would like to
show you a bit of the real Egypt something that most jour-
nalists never see. Will you come with me? The place is not far
from here."
I agreed. Walking, we saw many sights common to Cairo.
In the first instance it was a barefooted girl perhaps ten years
100 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
old, dressed in rags. Her individual toes were invisible because
of grime that had caked all over her it had even worked its
way into her matted hair. Her face haunted me. There were
black blotches on it and only as she came nearer did I realize
that these were masses of flies feeding on festering open sores.
She was holding aloft what seemed to be a doll. Then we saw
that the doll was actually an infant perhaps one or two years
old, probably alive, although we could not see it breathing, or
hear it cry as babies do when roughly handled. The tiny infant
was in tatters, one mass of filth from head to toe. Its closed
lids were slits of raw, inflamed skin, the usual result of tra-
choma. The girl was now squealing in a shrill voice, hopping
from one pedestrian to another, begging.
"Is the baby dead or alive?" I asked Yusef .
He shrugged his shoulders. "Only Allah knows. If it is not
dead, it will die before long. The garbage wagons pick up
many of them every morning. The parents have so many chil-
dren, and are so poor they cannot bury them. . . . Wait!"
Yusef walked over, gave the girl a few coins. She pinched
the waifs arm. It let out a thin wavering wail that sickened me.
"The girl says it is her sister, and she was born ill/' Yusef
saw the expression on my face. "Wait, you will see worse
things in a minute/'
A street urchin, carrying a shoe-shine box, accosted me
the obvious foreigner. "Imshi!" I said. "Beat it!" The boy
kept backing up before me, pointing at my shoes insistently.
"If you don't tip him he will throw liquid polish on you,"
Yusef warned. "I shall hit him. It is the only language he
understands."
"Don't," I said. "I won't be bullied, and you won't hit
him."
The urchin edged up to me, his brush dripping polish,
poised to be hurled. As I looked at him coldly, his face
changed to that of an angered animal. His threat apparently
worked with most foreigners. He was now both furious and
frustrated, his teeth bared like those of a dog about to strike.
Behind the Correspondent's Curtain 101
Suddenly I let out a series of oaths in Turkish, Armenian,
English, and a few I had learned in Arabic, that would have
reddened a mummy's face. The first salvo apparently terror-
ized the little bully; the encore sent him scurrying.
"You have learned Arab ways very quickly/' Yusef said
admiringly.
Except for the boulevards, tourist spots, and wealthy resi-
dential areas, Cairo is foul and smelly, one of the most un-
sanitary cities in the world. Dates are sold on the streets, black
flies swarming on them by the hundreds. I saw native barley
bread displayed on a tray on the sidewalk, making it easier
for dust, flies, and finely ground horse-dung to settle on it.
The Egyptian fly enjoys a reputation unique among the pests
of the world. An especially hardy breed, its ancestry probably
dating to the time of the Pharaohs, it is almost impossible to
destroy. It is the best-fed (and least molested) fly in the
world, thriving on huge piles of rubbish in streets, alleys, and
on roofs of native dwellings where the refuse of generations
collects.
With Yusef I saw a family of four children and their par-
ents squatting near the gutter, eating a meal of bread and
fasoulia, cooked marrow-beans. The bread rolled to the gutter.
Ma'alesh, never mind. One of the children picked it up. A
little further on, we saw an old woman in a black dress selling
oranges the size of lemons which she displayed on a rag at the
gutter's edge. Within arm's reach was a steaming manure
pile. Huddled against the doorway we saw a woman holding
a filthy infant in her arms, examining his head with near-
sighted diseased eyes. She paused for a moment, coughed,
then leaned over and spat. With her fingers, she scooped the
dirt on the sidewalk to cover her sputum, then went back to
her lice-picking. I noticed tiny mounds of concealed sputum
around her. Heaven only knows whether she was tubercular,
syphilitic, or what.
A beggar stopped at the fruit stand, pleading for rotted, fly-
specked dates. He was chased away with a whip, accompanied
102 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
by oaths. He was on crutches, a rag over his head, dressed in a
patchwork of rags. I caught a glimpse of his face. It was hor-
ribly pockmarked, and his right eye was a molten grayish ball
ringed with a perimeter of reddish sores. I turned my head.
"Have you thought where that beggar or his family might
live?" Yusef asked. "You will now see. We are almost there."
We arrived at a section in the heart of Cairo known as
Aishash el Tourgoman, a typical Egyptian slum. We entered
a world so completely different from anything I have seen in
twenty-three years as a reporter that I was numbed by the
shock. What has horrified you most? Was it the sight of a
mutilated body, frozen in the grimace of tortured death? Can
you describe it? Could you bear to look again? If one agonized
death shocked you, what effect would a dozen, a score, a hun-
dred such have upon you?
At Aishash el Tourgoman thousands of agonized men,
women, and children stared at me in living death. Their
hovels were built of earth, or of rotted wood creaking on
tottering foundations. They were dark caves, and the earthen
floor was lined with dried dung. People slept here, with no
blanket under or over them. The odor of death and disease
was everywhere. The "streets" alleyways from five to ten feet
wide twisted around in a maze so complex that once inside
a stranger might never find his way out. There were no
windowpanes, no curtains, no doors, and no electricity. Chil-
dren huddled about their mothers, too sick or too feeble to
play. Scrawny chickens, dogs, cats moved in and out of hovels,
feeding and dropping around the family. On a dungheap with
a donkey standing as immobile as death itself, dwarfed and
diseased children moved about. Huge dead rats, as large as
cats bloody and mangled in death, their huge tails curling
around them like the whips of Egyptian police lay tossed
and decaying on garbage heaps. Healthy green-black flies,
mosquitoes, and other insects filled the air, clung to your skin
like glue, or buzzed away in giant swarms carrying the diseases
of death. For generations these men and women of Cairo had
Behind the Correspondent's Curtain 103
lived this life each generation adding its contribution of filth
to the common store.
If you go to Cairo, remember Aishash el Tourgoman! A
guide won't take you. Officials will shunt you away. They will
tell you I am lying. Get a friend like Yusef, one who loves his
country to the extent of risking jail time and again in the hope
of banishing the Aishash el Tourgomans from the face of
Egypt
These slums beyond slums are not found in the big cities
alone. Egypt has hundreds of living graveyards to compare
with Aishash el Tourgoman. The thousands of men, women,
and children living in this particular district are but a segment
of the millions who live like them throughout Egypt. No
Egyptian will deny this to his fellow Egyptian. 1 But he will
deny it to a foreigner, so deep is his guilt in knowing that
Aishash el Tourgoman is far more typical of Egypt than are
the boulevards, hotels, shops, and residential areas that tour-
ists frequent. The bar of Shepheard's, the tea tables at Groppis
(a kind of Egyptian Schrafft's), the lounge of the Semiramis,
and the elaborate hotels at Luxor are not Egypt!
Yusef looked at me speculatively.
"I know another place," he said. "It is worse than this/'
"Thank you," I said. "But I've had enough for one day."
We parted company and I took the trolley back to the
Continental. I asked the Sudanese steward to prepare a hot
tub bath for me. I soaked and soaped myself thoroughly, gave
myself a scalding hairwash, and made a complete change of
clothing. For days thereafter I thought that every itch and
every sign of fatigue was a souvenir acquired in Aishash el
Tourgoman.
1 An exceptionally frank book, candidly revealing the social conditions of
the Egyptian masses, is The Fellaheen, by Father Henry Habib-Ayrout, S.J.,
published by R. Schindler, Cairo.
104 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
I CLIMB A PYRAMID
FOR the time being I had had enough of the seamy side of
Cairo. Deciding to see other facets of the city which might
give me better perspective, I visited the famous mosques and
the imposing Citadel. I made a tour of the bazaar area. With
the Armenian I had met at the airport I went to several night-
clubs. I attended a formal spring ball at Heliopolis, a suburb
of Cairo, and found the gowns lovely, but the girls less pretty
than ours.
In the Garden City section I marveled at the homes, gar-
dens, and the exceptionally handsome modern architecture.
I wondered how it was possible for the architects of Egypt to
live in the twentieth century, while the vast majority of its
society wallowed in feudalism. Invited by someone from the
Arab League Office, I had tea at the Gezira Sporting Club, a
smart gathering-place for the international set, patronized
mainly by the wealthy, by members of the foreign ministries,
Europeanized Arabs, and expensive kept women with faces
like worn doormats. At the Gezira I was urged not to miss the
royal museum. But I knew of the glory that was Egypt. I was
living in modern Egypt an entirely different world. I was in
the Middle East to study life; not historical deadwood.
I picked a bright sunny day when I had no appointments
scheduled. I boarded a trolley that took me to the Mena
House, the finest hotel in Cairo, and stepping-off point for
visits to the Pyramids. I weathered a locust swarm of guides,
pimps, camel-ride vendors, photographers, shoe-shine boys and
dragoman-leeches who hurled themselves on me the moment
I dismounted, and finally chose a young and sturdy Egyptian
named Khalil. According to the card he thrust in my face, he
was also "contractor" (whatever that meant) for "Cameles
and Horsese."
With him I visited the interior of one of the Pyramids: the
Behind the Correspondent's Curtain 105
stony cavern with its age-long layer of dust and grime was
neither attractive nor inspiring to me. I paid my respects to
the Sphinx, took a ride on a camel, and late in the afternoon
decided to climb the Pyramid of Cheops. At best this is a
hazardous venture, since the rocks of which the Pyramid is
built piled one upon the other are huge, and no clear path
to the top is visible. Few can climb safely without the help of
an expert guide. One literally signs away his life to his guide.
I bargained with Khalil as to his fee. He asked for four dollars.
Since the customary price was one third of that, we settled for
three dollars equivalent to the weekly wage of the average
Egyptian worker payable on the completion of the journey.
With Khalil leading the way, we scrambled up from one
rock to another. The Pyramid's peak is nearly 500 feet from
the desert floor. As we paused halfway up, I stole a glance
backward. I was almost terrified at the trail of jagged rock we
had come up. At this point there was no railing, no rope,
nothing to cling to if one became dizzy. One false step a
slip and death waited on the sandstone far below.
"Let's climb/' I said to Khalil. "Standing still makes me
nervous."
"Ahh, the Amrifcani is making afraid, yes?"
"Let's go, Khalil. Yallah, Khalil!"
The ascent seemed to grow steeper. My heart began to
pound from the exertion. Common sense dictated that we
pause once more. I avoided looking down again: I was afraid
of the tricks my imagination might play. We finally reached
the top. I found it a flat square of stone about twenty feet on
each side. I would have liked to have my name "carved on the
rock traditional with tourists who reach the top but the
Arab who usually carried out that task had put away his tools,
his brazier, and charcoal, and was about to leave.
"I am sorry I cannot even serve you tea," he said. "It is very-
late."
He left. Khalil and I found ourselves alone on the top of
the Pharaoh's five-thousand-year-old tomb. Cheops had em-
106 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
ployed a hundred thousand fellaheen in relays for three
months to build this monument to his name. As the story
was told me, he even set Hentsen, his daughter, to work-
selling her honor to help pay the expenses. For sentiment's
sake, Hentsen's lovers built her a small pyramid next to that
of her father. With Khalil, I watched the glorious desert sun-
set, a horizon aflame with gold. Below, to our left, was the
Mena House. Before us was the palace where King Farouk
reportedly held notorious wild parties. To our right were the
ancient ruins of Pharaonic tombs. In the distance, the Sphinx
looked on impassively, its nose blunted by Napoleon's can-
non. The panorama of Cairo spread before me. The desert
stretched to the horizon, broken only by an occasional house
or clump of palms. It was truly a majestic and breathtaking
sight, well worth the trouble to reach the top.
But what next? The descent worried me! Even though
Mother says I was raised on goat's milk, alas, the goat's skill
at mountain-climbing had never been transmitted! The sun
had just touched the rim of the horizon and a chill, shifting,
moody wind, laden with fine sand, swept in from the desert,
eerie in the sudden, silent way it had sprung up. I took it as
an omen. f
"Yallah, Khalil," I said. "Let's go. If s getting dark fast!"
"I want you pay me three dollars now," Khalil said, seated
comfortably crosslegged before me.
"That was not our bargain. I pay you when we get down/'
I said firmly.
"I want money now/' Khalil said, refusing to budge.
"You go to hell, my Arab friend!"
This caught Khalil by surprise. I had not the slightest idea
how Fd climb down by myself, but I went boldly to the side
up which we had come and took the first step.
"Pay me now half/' Khalil suggested, from his sitting posi-
tion.
"I give you now American cigarettes. I pay you all when we
Behind the Correspondent's Curtain 107
down/' I countered. I left a few cigarettes on the rock, and
began my perilous descent.
"Wait!" Khalil called out. "I come."
I assumed an air of impatience.
Khalil brushed past me in his skirts, and led the way down.
I expected the worst from him now, and I was doubly wary.
First, I waited to make sure we were going the same way we
came up, lest he maneuver me to an inaccessible part of the
Pyramid and strand me there for the night. If that was his
plan, he had chosen the proper moment. All the guides had
disappeared. There was no soul in sight. We were enveloped
in heavy silence. Not even a dog barked. Khalil and I were
utterly alone in the vastness of desert, perched atop Cheops,
with God as the only witness. Tiny human specks clinging to
this gigantic masonry, we were invisible even from Mena
House, the closest habitation, almost a mile away. Under
these circumstances, I was also wary of a possible "accident."
A slight push might easily send me crashing down, with no
witnesses except Khalil to testify that it was my fault and
no witnesses to watch while he picked my corpse later for
whatever of value I had on me.
As we worked our way down, every few minutes I would
pause and yell: "This way is not right, Khalil. You are taking
me down wrong. This other way is right."
We would argue back and forth on the rock, closer to
heaven than earth, and I would finally follow him. Halfway
down, Khalil waited till I had caught up.
"I want three dollars now/' he announced.
I sat down in a corner formed by two giant rocks, and
waved him on:
"Go ahead alone. I stay here. When I come down I pay
you."
Khalil looked at me: "You speak Amerikan, but you are not
Amerikan, yes?"
I knew what he meant. "Yes and no, Khalil/' I said. "I was
108 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
born in America. My mother is a Moslem from Baghdad
named Maryam. My father is Armenian. I am not American.
I am Armani. Understand?" It was as bizarre a lie as I could
think up at the moment, but its effect was magical.
"Allah! Allah! You half Muslimin, half Armani. I now
everything understand. Why you not say before?"
My alleged ancestry put an end to our East- West misunder-
standing. He could no longer bully an "Armenian" born of a
"Moslem mother/' so he began to skip down the rocks, tak-
ing what appeared to be a short cut. Forgetting myself, I be-
gan to skip gayly after him, never daring to look anywhere but
the next rock. Down, down, down we skipped, until finally we
reached the desert floor.
"Thank God'/' I said, and sat down exhausted, a physical
and nervous wreck. I paid off Khalil, gave him the pack of
cigarettes as baksheesh. "Allah ma'afc," I said, parting friends,
"God be with you."
"Allah yittawil omraJc," he said. "May God lengthen your
days."
As I sat at the foot of Cheops, panting, I could not help
but believe that God had intervened. I thanked Him again,
with a silent prayer. After a few minutes rest, I hobbled back
to the Mena House for a sumptuous dinner. It marked the
end of my adventure as a tourist an ordeal I had found more
dangerous than investigation.
The next morning, at six as usual, I was awakened by
Cairo's loudest and most disrespectful donkey. I heaped on
his invisible head curses in six languages. May he be visited
by a gnawing pestilence and his bones rot. In the hereafter,
may he never find a moment's rest, but have crushing loads to
carry, and a cruel master to whip him on the hour. All these I
wished upon him and more.
(CHAPTER VI)
WORLD OF THE KORAN:
ISLAM t/BER ALLES
"We will fight with the devil next time, if necessary.
We will fight with Russia against both England
and the United States to achieve our independence.
We will be Communists. We will be anything. . . .
We will act as Egyptians"
Saleh Harb Pasha
Former Egyptian Minister of Defense
I WAS visiting the headquarters of the Arab League, trying
to learn the latest news from Palestine, when one of the offi-
cials called me aside and said:
"You have become quite a familiar figure around the Arab
League, haven't you? You fly in and out like a bird. You al-
ways carry a camera and get around a great deal for a man
who is in Egypt for just a short visit."
How he knew that I had put down "short visit" on my
Egyptian visa application in London, or that I got around, I
never knew. But I determined to be careful, especially when
one of his wealthy friends invited me to a party at his desert
ranch near the Pyramids. One of the princesses of the royal
family (all were beautiful) had been invited. Such an event,
under the dancing stars and alluring Egyptian moon, with
dark-eyed houris and exotic Oriental music, could add a glit-
110 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
tering page of Arabian Nights adventure to my experiences.
But I had a girl back home; and the multiple dangers implicit
in such an arrangement made me cautious, especially when I
learned that some of the guests were to be British and Arab
agents. All would be curious about the "American who is
seeing everybody/'
Instead, I concentrated on Saleh Harb Pasha, former min-
ister of defense, and now director of Shuban el Muslimin, the
Young Moslem Association. 1 He was an intimate of Hassan
el Banna. Although the Shuban was not officially sending
volunteers to fight the Jews, it was a center of agitation fre-
quented by Green Shirt, Ikhwan, and Mufti henchmen.
While minister of defense during the war, Harb Pasha had
been removed from office, arrested and interned.
Harb Pasha said to me in English: "If Rommel had won
we would be independent now. If the Nazis and Fascists had
won [those were his words, not "Germany and Italy"] they
would have been friends to the whole Arab world. And," he
mused, "there would have been no Zionist problem because
there would have been no Zionist Jews ... or any Jews at
all left."
He was a large, brusque man strong-tempered, volatile,
with protruding eyes and rocklike jaw of a boxer. He had
served in the Turkish army in World War I against the Allies
and later joined the Egyptian army.
"The English are making a cat's-paw out of you Ameri-
cans," he went on. "We say in Egypt that the Americans are
first in science and industry, but children in diplomacy. The
French say: Cheichez la femme. I say to you that whenever
there is intrigue in the Arab world, search for the English
hand. For sixty-six years we have been her slave. We hate
Communism because we are Moslems, but a counsel of de-
spair will carry the day when Britain asks for our help next
1 It claimed 20,000 members in Cairo, 300 branches in Egypt, and
250,000 members throughout the world. My references are to the Egyptian
organization only, and have no bearing on any group with the same or similar
name outside Cairo.
World of the Koran: Islam Uber Alles 111
time. We look on democracy as a myth because imperialism
is still with us. We will fight with the devil next time, if neces-
sary. We will fight with Russia against both England and the
United States to achieve our independence. We will be Com-
munists. We will be anything. But we will be independent.
We will act as Egyptians/'
I found this feeling its genuineness will only be deter-
mined in a crisis widespread throughout the Arab world.
SPIES, COURIERS, AND TRAITORS
THERE is no doubt in my mind that this hatred for British
imperialism had much to do with the pro-Axis sympathies of
most of the Egyptian royal court. Those sympathies were
known to Allied intelligence early in World War II. Later
they became a world scandal. Members of Egypt's first family
were involved in espionage for Italy. In some of King Farouk's
palaces Italian technicians operated radios and relayed intelli-
gence to Rome. Many of the king's mistresses were Axis
agents. His palace was a rendezvous for spies, couriers, and
traitors. During the Nuremberg trials, it was brought out that
one of Farouk's cousins, Prince Mansour Baud, was provided
with an apartment and personal expenses by the German For-
eign 'Office (see Chapter XXII). He was reported to have
broadcast Axis propaganda in Arabic.
The sensational record of correspondence between Farouk
and Hitler was revealed in Nazi documents discovered after
the war, and disclosed in a memorandum submitted to the
United Nations during 1948 by the Nation Associates of
New York. It showed how Farouk took the initiative in writ-
ing to Hitler. On April 30, Ifi41, Hitler replied to Farouk's
note of April 15, and stated that he would "gladly consider a
closer co-operation/' Hitler asked Farouk to delegate "an au-
CABRO TO DAMASCUS
thorized confidential agent to a third place, like Bucharest or
Ankara, in order to discuss this co-operation/' It was agreed
that the Mufti should act as an intermediary.
Outside the palace the orgy of Nazi collaboration was at
fever pitch. British plans for the defense of strategic Tobruk,
less than one hundred miles from the Egyptian frontier, which
had unwisely been communicated to the Egyptian high com-
mand, were promptly relayed to Nazi intelligence. Tobruk
fell, a "Rommel victory" traceable to the Egyptian fifth col-
umn. The Egyptian parliament and press repeated verbatim
the Nazi propaganda broadcasts by the Mufti and his agents
from Berlin, Rome, Bari, and Athens. German victories were
headlined in the Egyptian newspapers: "You could tell if the
Germans or the Allies were winning merely by looking into
the faces of the Egyptians," a journalist said to me.
So pronounced was pro-Axis sentiment throughout the Arab
world that this phrase became common: "Bissama Allai, ala'
alarcf Hitler. In heaven Allah, on earth Hitler."
The spring of 1942 found the Allied cause in North Africa
nearly doomed, with Rommel only seventy-five miles from
Alexandria, Egypt's second city. The island of Crete, just
north of Egypt, was already in Nazi hands. The presence of
British troops and brilliant counterespionage kept Egyptians
from committing violent acts of sabotage and spreading the
welcome rug for Rommel If Egypt fell, one by one the other
Arab countries (except Trans-Jordan, a virtual British colony)
would have soon surrendered. Oil from the Middle East
would have greased the Nazi war machine. The Suez Ca-
nal would have served the Nazi cause. The resources of the
Empire would have been cut in two, and Allied Forces
pinched between Africa and a hostile Arab world.
The British took drastic action. They forced King Farouk to
remove Ali Maher Pasha and appoint their choice, Moustafa
el Nahas Pasha, as prime minister. The Axis agents in the king's
entourage were cleaned out and about 350 important officials
and members of the royal family were imprisoned or kept un-
World of the Koran: Islam Uber Alles 113
der house arrest in villas far removed from Cairo. With the
same broom Prime Minister Ali Maher and his Minister of
Defense, Saleh Harb Pasha, were swept into internment. The
Chief of Staff, Aziz Ali Masri Pasha, was already in custody,
forced down by the RAF at Almaza Airport with his two aides
as they were about to flee in an Egyptian military plane. A New
Yorfc Times dispatch reported: "It was believed he might try
to slip across into Libya, there perhaps to give the Germans the
benefit of his knowledge of desert warfare. . . . General Masri
Pasha is known to and admired by the Germans/'
To be fair, it must be mentioned that a few Egyptian states-
men consistently urged a declaration of war against the Axis.
One of these had been Ahmed Maher Pasha, a distinguished
member of the Egyptian parliament. Three months before
V-E Day, Egypt finally declared war against the Axis, in order
to assure herself a seat at the United Nations. Syria and Leba-
non followed. Ahmed Maher Pasha was on his way to make
the announcement in the senate when he was shot dead. The
assassin was a former member of the Green Shirts who, like
his king, believed that Hitler could win the war.
THE NON-EGYPTIAN KING OF EGYPT
KING FAROUK, the pleasure-loving monarch who has made
more headlines than any Egyptian ruler since Cleopatra, lives
and reigns like a Turkish sultan. An alien by blood the
founder of the dynasty was Mohammed Ali, a tobacco mer-
chant of mixed ancestry from Albania Farouk has as much
feeling for his people as had the Turkish sultans when they
reigned over Egypt.
Farouk rules by paternal terror and heavy bribes. He can
dismiss a government at will. Though he is cordially hated by
many Egyptians, he is fawned upon in public. Foreign cor-
respondents, to say nothing of local journalists, are prohibited
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
by law from attacking, criticizing, or referring to the king and
the royal family unless they submit their writing to a censor
first.
There is good reason for this law. Farouk's private life has
become a public scandal. For nearly a decade, while he was
married to the beautiful Queen Farida meaning "the Only
One" he committed adultery with women he picked up pub-
licly. Next to politics the king's promiscuous private life is the
most discussed public matter in Cairo. It is common knowl-
edge that he attends Cairo and Alexandria night-clubs for
"pick-ups" to feed an insatiable lust. From many Egyptian
eyewitnesses I have ascertained that frequently when he sees
an attractive woman he nods toward her. The royal pimps im-
mediately get busy. They accost her, bowing, and tell the lady
it is the king's wish to "dance" with her. Since the king rarely
dances in public (he is too fat to look courtly), the happy
event usually takes place in the king's private quarters in con-
venient sections of Cairo. His willing and unwilling dance
partners, so reports go, have included Italian belles, English
society women, and during the war, our own WAC's.
Any number of things can happen when the escort refuses
to surrender his girl to Farouk. If he is an Egyptian, he knows
better than to frustrate the monarch. I have the testimony of
a friend who swore that he was present at the Auberge des
Pyramides, a night-club on the outskirts of Cairo, when a non-
Egyptian girl refused to "dance." Upon the king's orders the
lights were dimmed, the night-club declared closed, and the
girl and her escort ordered to get out. In another authenti-
cated instance, freely discussed in American circles, the king
was attracted to a lady escorted by a U. S. Army Major. The
major told Farouk's pimp "to go to hell." The king, fuming,
could do nothing without causing an international incident.
And he did nothing.
Mussolini and his agents used to debauch Farouk with
many a skilled Italian Jezebel, thereby helping make more
secure the Axis's position in the Middle East. It is common
World of the Koran: Islam tJber Alles 115
talk in Egypt that in 1943 (five years after his marriage) the
king was driving furiously with two Italian girls and a male
companion when his car hit a truck near the village of Kas-
sassein. He spent a month at a British military hospital. It
was reported he broke two ribs and sustained serious eye in-
juries.
Farouk is fabulously wealthy. His father, Fouad, left him a
fortune estimated at forty million dollars. Farouk and the
royal family own about one million acres out of the five and
a half million under cultivation in Egypt. He possesses huge
villas and palaces throughout Egypt, and several private planes
for emergency departure. In addition, he receives an annual
income of half a million dollars from the government. His in-
vestments, scattered in Switzerland and other countries, re-
putedly total sixty million dollars. He operates a model farm
and owns a number of night clubs and restaurants in Cairo
and Alexandria.
The king lives in constant fear of his life. I saw him one
day as he was leaving the Cairo Opera. For blocks ahead the
streets were cleared of all traffic, and the people were kept on
the sidewalk by police. The king's bright-red Rolls-Royce was
preceded by motorcycles, an armed truck filled with troops,
and two bright-red jeeps filled with soldiers and automatic
rifles. Immediately before and behind his car were black se-
dans filled with plainclothesmen. No one else in Egypt is
allowed to paint his car red, the royal color.
In fairness, it must be pointed out that Farouk is probably
no better and no worse than most of the members of Egypt's
ruling cliques. His personal morals and profligate living are
patterned after those of the ruling pashas and effendis, which
explains their tolerance for him and, in turn, explains the
king's hold on them.
116 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
WORLD OF THE KORAN
AFTER the king, the next most powerful figure in Egypt
was a solemn-faced, pious man in his seventies, his face dis-
tinguished but tired. His eyes, too, were tired, and his mouth
sagged with the weariness of age. But as the rector of El Azhar
University, Sheikh Mohammed Ma'moun el Shinawi provided
the sinews for the Holy War against Zionism, just as his pred-
ecessors had furnished fanatic leaders who fought the Cru-
saders. I met Sheikh el Shinawi with Aboul Saud, a pleasant,
English-speaking member of the Arab League Office. Every
year El Azhar graduated hundreds of missionaries who
preached its fanatic doctrine throughout Asia, Africa, and
the islands of the Pacific. Founded in 792, for more than a
thousand years El Azhar has been the academic shrine, as
Mecca is the religious shrine, of 240,000,000 Moslems of the
world.
Aboul and I walked to the university together. We found
it in an ancient part of Cairo, surrounded by bazaars and
native quarters. At the outer gate we left our shoes in charge
of a doorman, and put on loose oversized straw slippers. The
Koran requires that those entering a holy place must either
wash their feet or cover their shoes with undefiled footwear.
Stepping over a high wooden threshold, we entered one of the
courtyards that served the students as classrooms. Hundreds
of sheikhs-in-the-making were about, wearing the small red fez
and white turban, with ankle-length black robes over lighter
garments. They were sitting on the matted floors, legs crossed,
in socks or bare feet, studying, reciting loudly, swaying to the
rhythm of words, or else being tutored in small study groups
by the ulema, religious teachers. They were ardent, intense,
dark-skinned young men, completely absorbed in their labors.
I was with Aboul when classes were interrupted for prayers.
What should I do now? While Aboul went through the ritual
World of the Koran: Islam Uber Alles 117
of cupping his palms behind his ears, touching the floor with
his forehead and mumbling his prayers, I faced Mecca on my
knees, bent forward in a position that I hoped would be in-
terpreted as respectful. When the prayers were over, I straight-
ened up. This courtesy on my part was not missed by Aboul,
who treated me with increased cordiality thereafter.
Though the prophet Mohammed died in A.D. 632, I found
that at El Azhar his preachments were considered fresh and
applicable today with absolutely no modifications. The stu-
dents I saw seemed to have no contact with reality, to recog-
nize no social problems such as Egypt's seventeen million
miserable fellaheen. I watched them copy by hand manu-
scripts in exquisite Arabic script. They pored over the Koran
to see what Mohammed said about blood transfusion from
Christian to Moslem. Aboul explained to me that Islam is
not only an authoritarian religion, but also both a political
creed and a way of life encompassing the sum total of a Mos-
lem's temporal and spiritual existence.
"You might describe Mohammedanism as a religious form
of State Socialism/' he said. "The Koran gives the State the
right to nationalize industry, distribute land, or expropriate
property. It grants the ruler of the State unlimited powers, so
long as he does not go against the Koran. The Koran is our
personal as well as political constitution/'
After we put on our shoes, we went to arrange a visit with
the rector himself. In the office of his secretary, I asked one of
the university officials to what extent El Azhar was helping
the Arab League. "We are not only backing it, but we are
leading the cause of the League/' he said. "The Jews have op-
pressed the Arabs. We will permit them to do it no longer.
Their knife has cut to our bone."
My audience with Sheikh Shinawi, who spoke in a foggy
voice, was brief, for we had come without notice. He was wary
of questions he considered "political," but he did reply when
I asked him if he was afraid of the inroads of Communism.
"Islam," he said, "is the rock that will cause Communism
118 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
to recede/ 7 Mohammedanism had a powerful hold on the
Arabs, he explained, because "It penetrates the human being
without difficulty or mental effort/' When I ventured to ask
him about the role of El Azhar, his answer was one that I
found difficult to reconcile with what I had seen so far:
"Moslems from all over the world come to drink from its
fountain and be enlightened by its radiance. El Azhar has
been the source of all progressive movements and social
revivals. El Azhar has shown the way to all reformers and has
shown the people their rights/'
Was the sheikh acquainted with the Mufti?
"Indeed I know him/' he said, his eyes brightening momen-
tarily. "I know him personally and I like him very much/'
We salaamed respectfully, and left
It was about this time that I found plastered on the walls
of Cairo buildings huge, luridly colored posters, violently anti-
Jewish. One of them, showing a bloodstained dagger with the
Star of David on its handle, and blood dripping from it, ex-
horted: "Arm Arabism!" Other posters read: "Don't talk to
the Jews. . . . Don't do business with them. . . . Kill their
business and they die. . . . Consider them as our deepest
enemies/*
A large colored placard, printed in English, Arabic, Spanish,
French and Italian, showed a sketch that purported to be the
desecration of a holy relic in Jerusalem by the Jews, and read:
ZIONISTS' NEW YEAR PRESENT TO CHRISTENDOM
The Archbishop of Canterbury, in a recent letter to the
Times, said he would not entrust the Holy Land to the Zi-
onists because he was sure they would lose no time in desecrat-
ing every relic of the Christ or the Prophet Mohammad to
be found in the Holy Places.
The photo of the statue of the Virgin Mary in Ratisbonne
Church, Jerusalem, battered beyond recognition and thrown
World of the Koran: Islam Uber Alles 119
on the floor of the church, shows that the Archbishop's ap-
prehensions were well-founded. His prophecy has come true.
I was told that this poster was put up by the Arab League.
Certain committees, posing as "patriotic/' either mortgaged
or bought land from Palestine Arabs, ostensibly to keep it
from Jewish settlers. Arabs who refused to sell at low prices
were branded tools of the Jews, and often murdered. Actually,
the purpose of these committees was to extend the feudal
powers of the landowners. I was told: "The Arab who sold his
land to the Jews against our advice was killed at once. Anyone
could kill him. No one would know who. The Arab's family
and the families of other Arabs would know why he had been
killed/ 7
THE ARAB DREAM ISLAM ttBER ALLES
ONE of the Arab League's most eloquent spokesmen was a
Roman Catholic convert named Assad Bey Dagher, whom I
met through Aboul. Assad Bey briefed me at length on the
League's ultimate aim: the unification of the Arab States
from Gibraltar to Iraq. This would include Spanish and
French Morocco, Algeria, Lybia, Tunis (these North African
Moslem countries are collectively known as the Maghreb),
Sudan, the Arab League States (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen,
Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan), and Palestine, which was repre-
sented in the League by the Mufti.
"The Arab world would be like a giant bird, with the
Maghreb countries comprising the left wing, the Arab States
the right wing. Egypt would be the body and soul of the Arab
bird," Assad Bey said to me. "There will be unity, uniform
laws, the same money system, no customs barriers, and no
need for passports for Moslems. Each State would have an
independent tax system and its own army, but the manpower
120 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
and resources of one would be available to the other in all
emergencies/'
"How about Palestine? 7 ' I asked.
"The idea of Zionism must be uprooted so as never to recur
in the mind of Jew or non-Jew. Once the Arab world is uni-
fied there will be no Zionism/' Assad Bey said sternly. "Zion-
ism is an obstacle. It cuts into the right wing of the Arab
world. How can you have a continuous Arab civilization when
European Jews set up a foreign nation in your midst?"
"Would you include Turkey and Persia in your scheme?""
I asked.
"Neither Turkey nor Persia is Arab/' he answered.
If the dream should come true, the Arab Empire would
stretch in an unbroken chain from the Atlantic to the Arabian
Sea for four thousand miles. It would boast a population of
nearly seventy million and cover almost four million square
miles of strategic territory. It would dominate the Suez Canal,.
Gibraltar, and all the oil and military resources of the area.
"Would not such a Moslem bloc again try to conquer Eu-
rope by the sword?"
"You are misinterpreting history/ 7 Assad Bey said coolly.
"If you had read Islamic history, you would have known that
Europe was invaded by Turks not the Arabs. The Arabs
were never aggressive. The Crusaders and the Zionists have
been aggressors. They came from Europe to conquer Arab
lands. Arab history is not well known to the West. The Arab
religion is missionary. It seeks to expand but not to colonize.
The Arab is not imperialist/ 7
"How about the conquest of Spain?" I thought of asking
Assad Bey.
What I had heard was the crux and the justification of the
pan-Arab dream. While it had many obstacles the chief be-
ing the Arab himself the fever burned with intense heat
among the nationalists. They had fired the imagination of
millions of downtrodden Moslems. Amid their squalor they
fed on visions of Islam iiber alles, and dreamt of better days
World of the Koran: Islam Uber Alles 121
under a "greater Islam." This It was becoming obvious to
me was the magic carpet that would make the Arabian
Nights dream of women, song, and rivers of wine Allah's
paradise on earth come true. It was a powerful stimulant
to anti-Western agitation, regardless of Arab governmental
changes, for the pan-Arab dream transcends all politics.
And come what may, His Majesty's Middle East Office was
not only on the ground floor, but was helping in the maneu-
vers. I saw this on my visit to the Maghreb Office in Cairo,
established to help the North African Arab States achieve
their independence from France and Spain. Instead of, as I
expected, meeting Arabs there, I was welcomed by a sharp-
nosed, thin-lipped, toothy Englishwoman named Margaret
Pope, a correspondent of the London Observer. Her com-
fortable apartment served as the Maghreb Office; her tele-
phone number was its telephone number. I was served drinks
and given information in a fashion that assumed I didn't
know Algeria from Alabama, Throughout Europe and the
Middle East the Americans, I realized, had built up a remark-
able reputation for gullibility.
After Miss Pope had welcomed me, "Slim" appeared from
somewhere. Slim no surname given was a fast-talking
young man described to me as a Moroccan. He filled the
propaganda plate. Both he and Miss Pope asserted that Eng-
land was helping the Arabs achieve independence from Span-
ish imperialism in Algeria and the Moroccos.
"But isn't England also imperialist?" I ventured.
"Yes, she has been," Slim came back swiftly, in perfect
English, accent and all. "But she has given independence to
India and her other former colonies. There is also this differ-
ence between British and French imperialism. The British
exploit the country economically. But the French also inter-
fere with its religion, customs, and education. They seek to
Frenchify a colony."
"The French enslave the soul of a people, as well as ran dry
the wealth of their country," Miss Pope added.
122 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
"And your view of conditions in other Moslem lands such
as Spanish Morocco?" I asked.
"Franco is a beast and a bastard/' Slim was carrying the ball
now while Miss Pope listened approvingly. "Franco rules with
an iron hand in a Fascist regime/'
Slim had a perfect right to hate colonial exploitation. What
I resented was the hypocrisy in whitewashing British colonial
policy. General Clayton's name 2 was brought into the pic-
ture: "He is sometimes asked by the Arab States for advice.
Most of the Arab League members are his friends/ 7 Slim said.
Clayton was in charge of a special division in the Middle East
Office "to maintain liaison with Arabs and give economic aid
and advice."
A British writer aptly described the Maghreb Office as the
"North African Nationalists' No. 10 Downing Street." It was
used as a center of agitation against rival Spanish and French
interests. As I saw it, once the Moslems had achieved their
independence, England would slip in by the back door under
the guise of "advising" the puppet regime it had helped cre-
ate. Toward this end leaders of the Maghreb countries not
only received propaganda training by the British, but also sub-
sidies in money and other aid. Under veiled British direction
Algerian, Tunisian, and Moroccan "Committees of Libera-
tion" were formed. With imperialist England hated and re-
viled throughout the Middle East and Asia, England's only
area of future exploitation lay in Africa. Toward this end the
Maghreb Office, and similar bodies, worked overtime.
THE GROWLING LION OF MOROCCO
BEFORE leaving I had won from Miss Pope and Slim the
promise that in a day or two I could meet Emir Abd el Krim,
2 Brig.-Gen. Htid Nicholl Clayton, then in charge of His Majesty's
Middle East Office. An influential policy-maker, he directed intrigue among
the Arab States, and served as chief of Middle East intelligence.
World of the Koran: Islam Uber Alles 123
the "Lion of Morocco/' This famous leader of the Riff moun-
tain tribes repulsed the combined assaults of the French and
Spanish for six years before he was finally forced to surrender,
He was then exiled for more than twenty years on Reunion
Island in the Indian Ocean. Abd el Krim was now in Cairo.
The story of his "escape" from exile portrayed as a ro-
mantic adventure by British writers was as a matter of cold
fact the outcome of an anti-French plot hatched in the Magh-
reb and Middle East Offices. Here's how it happened:
In May 1947, the French decided to transfer Abd el Krim
to the Riviera. The French plan was to play him against the
Sultan of French Morocco, championed by the British. As
the ship carrying the Riff hero rounded the British protec-
torate of Aden, British agents informed the Maghreb Office
in Cairo. The Maghreb puppets sprang into action. They
clambered on board and urged him to jump ship immedi-
ately. . . . The Riff leader did so with his two wives and
eleven children, asked for and was granted immediate asylum
by King Farouk. No one was surprised except the French.
The Maghreb Office went into ecstasies. Now His Majesty's
Middle East Office had another trump card to play against
its imperialist rival. This was the situation when I met Abd
el Krim, with Slim serving as the interpreter.
Abd el Krim was cordial and agreeable. A short, broad-
shouldered, muscular man of sixty-eight, he was dressed in a
long white cloak striped with gray, pointed Moroccan slippers,
and a white turban. His face was deeply lined, his nose prom-
inent, his jaw jutting and covered with a thin gray goatee.
The ends of his long mustache curled downward. The eyes
were unusual: living coals, topped by shaggy brows. His eyes
looked at you fiercely, as if to say: "Don't-try-to-cross-me-or-
else." Abd el Krim spoke slowly, in a deep rich voice used to
command. He took the lead by asking the first question.
"Why/' he said casually, "do you in America hate Com-
munism?"
"Because it's an authoritarian system that destroys liberty,
124 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
enslaves free men, makes a mockery of justice and democracy/'
"Those are exactly the reasons why we hate imperialism/'
He ripped out the words in explosive Arabic. "It is true that
most of us are not as well educated as you in the West, but
the love of freedom is inborn in man. The lowliest peasant
wants to rule his own destiny. Help us fight imperialism and
we Arabs will help you fight Communism. I swear to you we
will honor this pact/'
The impact of his assault, the intensity of delivery, took
me by surprise. It gave an inkling of the way he had handled
the Spanish and the French.
"America is a great and generous country. It means to do
good. But it has helped Communism by encouraging imper-
ialism. If Russia, yes, Communist Russia, promises to help
us achieve independence, we will accept that help. We will
take Russian arms and ammunition, but we will not let her
in our country."
I suspected this was easier said than done, but made no
comment. Instead, I asked: "Are you opposed to British as
well as Spanish and French imperialism?"
The Riff leader's right hand went to his cheek in a thought-
ful pose. I wondered why this arch foe of imperialism did not
tear off my ear with an immediate blast.
"We consider British policy as being better than French
or Spanish. We have seen how England gave freedom to In-
dia. England is becoming a friend of the Arab world/' he
said through Slim.
This sounded too much like Slim. The use of the word
"we" particularly was not typical of Abd el Krim, the desert
chieftain. I wished I had a way of checking Slim's translation.
"If England gave you help against the French, would you
take it?"
"Yes, by all means."
Abd el Krim now shifted ground and took the offensive
again. "We cannot understand American policy. You have
helped the Zionists and turned all the Arabs against you.
World of the Koran: Islam Uber Alles 125
Time will show that you are wrong. But," he pointed his fin-
ger at me, "if you make one more mistake you will turn the
Maghreb countries against you, as well."
"What mistake?" I asked.
"Helping Franco! There is talk of that. Helping Spain will
only enable Franco to behave more brutally toward us. I hope
you will not give loans to Spain. I hope you will not send
military supplies that Spain will use against the Maghreb
Arabs. I hope you will not make in Spain the mistakes you
have already made in Palestine."
(CHAPTER VII)
THE MARXIST UNDERGROUND
"Russia will not fail us. I believe Russia will always
support any movement which will help the Egyp-
tian people. . . . But we will not talk of that now.
. . . The use of force and other tactics will be de-
cided when the correct time comes"
Mahmoud Nabaoui, Egyptian Communist
EVER since my meeting with the students at Fouad Uni-
versity whom Gamal had described as Communist, I had
wanted to see how the Communist party operated in Egypt,
and what it stood for. In such a feudal, primitive, and violent
land, an inquiry like this was a risky undertaking. But every
investigation has its undercover approach.
I met my first nonstudent revolutionary at a secret meeting
arranged by an Arab newspaperman who worked for a major
American news agency in Cairo. Whether he was a member
of the Marxist underground, I'm not prepared to say. All I
know is that one day as the shadows of Mohammed Ali
Mosque deepened over the adjoining native quarter, he pro-
duced Anwar Kamel. An intense young man, Kamel told me
he had been jailed six times, first for Stalinist, then for
Trotskyist activity, in which he was now engaged. He pro-
vided me with background that I needed.
"At first men like Sidky Pasha [former pro-English Egyp-
The Marxist Underground 127
tian prime minister] supressed the revolutionary movement/'
he began. "Sidky was a kind of Egyptian Mussolini. He had
one idea force. But you can't stop Marxism by force, or by
laws, because its roots go very deep into the misery of the
people. The Communist movement here really began in
1939 when students and intellectuals formed a group called
Art and Freedom. We studied the theory of Communism,
read Marx and Lenin, received literature from London and
Paris; from America we got the Daily Worker and The Mili-
tant. 1 We also had revolutionary newspapers from Beirut,
Damascus, and Baghdad. Nothing from Russia. It was war-
time.
"Two years later Bread and Freedom replaced Art and
Freedom," Anwar Kamel went on. "This was made up of a
dynamic group of workers and intellectuals. Five hundred
people used to come to our meetings. One day sixty of us
were thrown in jail. We didn't meet in public after that. To-
day there are hundreds of cells, both Stalinist and Trotskyist,
with five to ten men in each. Some of these cells receive their
direction from the Democratic Movement for National
Liberation. Names and leaders always change. They come
and go. When one disappears another takes his place. But the
revolutionary movement goes always forward, no matter what
happens to the leaders.
"The Communists have lots and lots of money," Kamel
said emphatically. "I have an idea it comes from Russia and
is distributed through some satellite embassy. The Commu-
nists get some Egyptian supporters by buying them off. That
is the weakness of their movement. Trotskyists are idealist
revolutionary Marxists. We are strongly organized among
the workers of the Mattaria Railway, and also among the tex-
tile workers."
Strikes were outlawed in Egypt, Kamel told me. Many
occurred, nonetheless. Although union activity was permitted,
1 Trotskyist organ published in New York by the Socialist Workers
Party.
128 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
a federation of labor unions was not. A minimum-wage rule
granted some five piastres a day fifteen cents, a sum usually
paid to child labor. Skilled, organized workers received up to
about one dollar a day, or less than seven dollars for a 48-hour
week, to support usually large families. Unorganized labor,
which was in the great majority, got less thirty to forty-five
cents a day, usually, while a policeman earned about $4.50
weekly, plus whatever graft he could pick up.
Leaving Kamel, I attempted to contact an avowed Com-
munist, Fadhi el Ramli of the Socialist Front. No one knew
where he could be found. After four days of guarded inquiry,
I ventured to ask someone in the Press Department of the
Arab League. To my amazement he looked into his address
book and said: "RamFs telephone number is 57381."
I telephoned at once, and spoke with Mrs. Ramli. I finally
induced her to let me visit her home because of something
"very important" I had to tell. I found the Ramlis living in
a poverty-stricken area. Their home was on the second floor
of an indescribably run-down tenement. The place was almost
barren of furniture. A frightfully dark hole which I thought
was a closet turned out to be an Egyptian poor-man's kitch-
enettea blackish sink, a dripping faucet, surrounded by rat
holes. Mrs. Ramli pointed to her son, a chubby little fellow
having his feet washed in a dishpan.
"Him name Stalin," she said proudly.
I had candy with me and gave it to Baby Stalin. To Mrs.
Rarnli I offered Life Savers. If she had not been emancipated,
I could never have met her face to face in her home. After
tales of my association with "Henri Vallas, goot demokrat," 2
and considerable persuasion, I convinced Mrs. Ramli to
2 Unwittingly, but due mainly to his former association with the Pro-
gressive Party, Henrry Wallace had become acceptable to Communists and
leftist democrats alike throughout the Middle East. Although I had met Mr.
Wallace briefly only once, while he was vice president I confess, with
apologies to the well-intentioned Democrat who kept such bad political com-
pany, that I professed to know him much better than I actually did.
The Marxist Underground 129
telephone her husband. She arranged for an appointment at
the American Bar.
"But how will I recognize your husband? 7 ' I asked.
"Him I tell how you look," she said. "Him come to you in
American Bar."
As I was leaving, little Stalin left the dishpan and ran to
me for more candy. "Go ask your namesake for it/' I said. "I
haven't any more."
The American Bar proved to be a crowded cafeteria. As I
browsed conspicuously just inside the door, a bulky dark-
haired, dark-featured man approached me.
"Vallas American?" he said.
"You Fadhi el Ramli?" I asked.
"Aywa, aywa, yes, yes/ 7 he said, and I followed him to his
table. Sitting there was a short intense Arab named Saleh
Orabi, editor of Telegraf magazine, in Khartoum in the Sudan.
He served as translator.
"The Communists could be the first party in Egypt because
of the poverty of the masses," Ramli said. "The people listen
to the Communists but are still afraid of the police. The
workers are different. They have more courage. Eighty per
cent of the labor leaders of Egypt are Communist."
"How do you define a Communist?" I asked.
"One who is a Marxist and believes in the Marxist revolu-
tion of workers. I am a Communist."
How about the "Socialist Front" under which he had (un-
successfully) run for public office? Oh, that? That, said Ramli,
was a device used to circumvent a law prohibiting Commu-
nists from holding office. Ramli was now advocating an
"armed struggle against British imperialism." He emphasized
that it was not directed against the Egyptian government.
"But it has the same effect/' Egypt's Communist added.
"Every circumstance has its technique."
I asked if he believed violence was inevitable.
130 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
"If the reactionary system refuses all reforms, the only way
to change it is by violence. When I speak of armed struggle
against the English, it means I am thinking of guerrilla train-
ing against a government we will have to fight eventually."
"How long will it be before violence begins in Egypt?"
"It depends on the world situation," Ramli answered. "If
economic conditions continue to grow worse, it will be sooner
than if conditions were better. In Egypt the revolution will
come about 1953. Egyptian feudalism is the best ally for
Egyptian Communism."
"What about the Green Shirts and the Ikhwan? What
role do they play?"
Ramli shook his head contemptuously. "Hussein and El
Banna are outright Fascists/' he said. "They are one of the
greatest dangers to Egypt. They confuse the people. They
talk social reform but they are backed by the pashas and
clerical reactionaries."
And our interpreter nodded in agreement.
". . . IN THE AGE OF FANATICISM"
THE next man I interviewed had been jailed so many times,
he told me, that he had lost count. No formal charges had
ever been lodged against him, nor was he usually brought be-
fore a judge. Whenever governments changed, or whenever
those in power didn't like what he wrote, police hauled him
away and he stayed in jail until official tempers cooled off,
usually in less than a week. Dr. Mohammed Mandour was
no Communist, but a rugged reformer-editor of Soutul-
Umma, a liberal newspaper.
He was a tall, dignified man and spoke excellent English.
He admired our Constitution and people, but had no love for
our foreign policy, which he thought aped England's. Dr.
Mandour had two special hates: the pasha class and the Eng-
The Marxist Underground 131
lish. He claimed that the English exploited the pashas' fear
of Communism, and that both together conspired to continue
oppressing the Egyptian masses. In addition, he thought both
British and pashas were whipping up anti-Zionist hysteria to
postpone social reforms.
"Egypt is not in need of Communism/* he said. "We don't
want Communist help. We need reform from top to bottom,
not revolution, which brings the dirty bottom to the top. I see
hope. We will some day have a democracy, a constitutional
monarchy like Sweden and Holland, where the real power
rests with the people."
Dr. Mandour thought for a moment, then continued
slowly:
"No people in the world are treated as miserably as our
masses. A farmer sells his dairy products and vegetables and
lives principally on cereals. He eats only eleven pounds of
meat a year. Of about 5,500,000 acres of arable land, 2,000,
000 belong to 1,500 pashas, including the royal family; 1,500,
000 acres to some 12,000 landowners; about 500,000 acres are
held by the Wakf, 3 leaving 1,500,000 acres for more than
3,000,000 fellaheen, less than a half acre each. The rest have
nothing. They work as slave-tenants. Egypt's wealth is con-
centrated in less than one per cent of her population. One out
of every two children dies before he reaches the age of five.
"Egypt could become the granary of the whole Arab
world/ 7 he went on. "We could feed all our people if we
used the Nile to irrigate the millions of acres of waste lands.
Do you know that only three per cent of our country is culti-
vated? In the matter of poverty the average Egyptian is the
richest man in the world. The average non-fellah family has
an income of from $75 to $150 a year. We are in the hands
of fanatics/ 7 Dr. Mandour said, now losing his professorial
calm. "We are living in the age of fanaticism. Men who are
3 Religious trusts, in which land is placed in the perpetual, tax-exempt
custody of a religious association that assigns the income for charitable pur-
poses. The executives are often under political control.
132 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
mad about money, power, imperialism. Men who think only
of violence, revolution, dictatorship!"
"RUSSIA WILL NOT FAIL US"
DR. MANDOUR told me about El Gamaheer, a Communist
weekly. It was edited by the son of a rich landowner,
Mahmoud Nabaoui. "His father is influential. The police are
afraid that keeping him in jail will make a scandal," Dr.
Mandour said.
My hunt for Nabaoui led me to the top floor of a tenement.
I had to sell myself as a Wallace-booster and pro-Communist
before I was admitted. Once in, I found myself in a room with
a printing press, and had no difficulty in convincing a half
dozen youths that it was important for me to contact
Mahmoud Nabaoui. El Gamaheer (meaning The People)
was a lurid affair, with the front and back covers printed in
red ink, and carrying the usual wild party-line illustrations.
I met Nabaoui in a caf 6, and we sat at a corner table for a
quiet talk. He was a mousy type, twenty-six years old but look-
ing younger. He had a short haircut, unusually deep-set eyes.
"Russia will not fail us," he said in answer to my question.
"I believe Russia will always support any movement which
will help the Egyptian people. . . . But we will not talk of
that now."
What plans were there for the establishment of popular
democracy in Egypt?
"We would like to achieve democracy the right way, by
agitation," he answered. "The use of force and other tactics
will be decided when the correct time comes. We cannot tell
now what we will do." Nabaoui confirmed Ramlf s observa-
tion that the majority of labor organizers were Communist,
while about fifteen per cent were influential members of
Ikhwan el Muslimin. "We already have 150,000 industrial
The Marxist Underground 133
workers organized," Nabaoui said. "That is only one tenth of
the industrial potential/ 7
Nabaoui told me that the People's Liberation Movement
had two thousand secret Communist members, meeting in
cells. There was a Congress of Trade Union Workers, a
Patriotic Committee for Workers and Students, and a Cul-
tural and Scientific Association all underground. "These,"
he explained, "take in most of the progressive workers, stu-
dents, and intellectuals. We used to have the Popular Uni-
versity, which taught history, politics, and economics from
the Marxist point of view, but Sidky Pasha shut it down.
In 1946 we organized a National Front which brought to-
gether thousands of members and sympathizers under one
leadership. Sidky Pasha suppressed this, too, and threw the
leaders into jail."
"How are you financed?" I asked. Nabaoui hesitated a
moment before answering. "My father gives me a monthly
income. My wife also has means. El Gamaheer has a circula-
tion of ten thousand and the proceeds from each issue just
about meet expenses. Only two of our workers receive a sal-
ary ten dollars a month each."
"Do you receive any funds from outside sources? From
other countries?"
Nabaoui shook his head. "From Russia, never," he said.
No, not even from Henri Curiel, described to me as a leader
of the Egyptian Communist movement. He was a myste-
rious figure who rarely appeared in public. The very fact that
he was so well known was a sure indication, as far as I was
concerned, that he was not a top man, but served as a front
for others. He owned three bookstores and was reputed to
have become wealthy from them. But in a country with
eighty-five per cent illiteracy, it was difficult to understand
how a bookseller could become rich.
I continued to press Nabaoui. Had Curiel other means of
support? Nabaoui wouldn't tell. He suggested that I meet
Curiel by dropping into the most prominent of his bookshops,
134 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
the Rond Point. When I went there I found three salesmen,
all speaking English. I was astonished to see the large stock
of out-and-out Communist propaganda, in English, French,
and Arabic. I bought a booklet with a drawing of Lenin on
the cover; one with a drawing of Marx; and a third on Tito.
These were in Arabic. I bought The Call of the Russian
Church, Soviet News, and Russia Today, all printed in Lon-
don. I also bought New Times, published in Moscow, and an
old copy of our own Daily Worker!
Curiel himself was not in. One of the salesmen said that
Curiel's father would arrive at five o'clock. When I returned
later, I saw behind the cash register an elderly man wearing
dark glasses. I went directly to him and stretched out my
hand. He did not respond. I realized he was blind. I told him
I wanted to see Henri Curiel.
"Why do you want to see him? Are you a Communist?"
If I had said yes, it would have been difficult to live up to
it when I met his son. If I said no, it might prejudice the old
man against me; so I replied: "Don't make me answer that
question now, please. Til answer directly to Henri/'
It was the correct response because the old man smiled.
"You will contact Henri through my daughter-in-law/' he
said. "Telephone her at 57270."
I phoned immediately and talked to the old man's wife,
who said her daughter-in-law would be in at eight o'clock.
When I called at eight, I reached the younger woman. Would
I call back again tomorrow?
I phoned. I phoned for the next two days and each time
was politely brushed off both by the young and the older
Curiels. Finally I lost my temper and demanded a showdown.
Just as angrily, young Mrs. Curiel snapped back: "You have
talked to Mahmoud Nabaoui. You have asked him many
questions; you have asked questions about finances. We do
not know who you are, or why you ask such questions. I will
try to get someone else to speak to you, but I will have to ask
my husband first/'
The Marxist Underground 135
Frustrated, I appealed to the Arab newspaperman who had
been my first contact. He knew Curiel and would do his best
But Curiel flatly refused to see me.
Allah must have had a hand in all this, for as it turned out,
Curiel' s refusal saved me from a grave predicament. Two days
later Cairo newspapers broke out in headlines: "Police Yester-
day Discovered the General Headquarters of the Egyptian
Communist Party/ 7 They had raided a tenement on Suleiman
Pasha street and discovered "extremely important documents
revealing the address of all the cells and names of the heads
of the movement throughout the country/' Important pa-
pers also showed "connection between these cells and foreign
countries/'
Prior to the raid, they had placed the evasive Curiel under
twenty-four hour surveillance, and trailed him to his secret
headquarters. He was now in jail. Had I met Curiel, I, too,
would have been followed, certainly arrested for questioning,
and would probably have had a taste of Cairo prison life.
With my police record of camera forays and my curious
friendships, I would have been in a difficult position.
LIBERATION AT LAST!
I decided to keep out of sight for a while. I remained in my
room at the Continental for several days, had my meals
brought up, and ventured out only at night for a few urgent
telephone calls I feared to make from the hotel. I telephoned
Hussein repeatedly. When do we start for Palestine? I de-
manded. "Any day now," he said. "Wait. Be patient. Be
patient. This is not America/'
Wait. Wait. Wait. No wonder it was said that an Arab
spends half his time in waiting, the other half in wishing. I
determined I could wait no longer. I would have to revert to
my original plan and go to Palestine by myself, even though
136 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
such travel now was particularly dangerous. I took the bull
by the horns and approached the British Embassy for a visa
to Palestine. It was not easy to obtain, and only after I came
with a letter recommending me as a "keen and reliable his-
torian of the present" was I granted it. I was now prepared to
enter Palestine legally as a newspaperman.
I made other preparations. I suggested to Moustafa Momen,
one of the leaders of the Ikhwan, that he give me a letter of
introduction vouching for my devotion to the Arab cause.
It would help me in Palestine, I told him. After some consul-
tation, Momen wrote the following letter, which was to prove
extremely valuable to me:
To Generous Brother El Sayed Safer el Shawa
Head of the Brotherhood
Gaza
Greetings: God's Mercy and Blessings Be with You!
I present to you Mr. , the American correspondent. He
has already visited the general headquarters of the Brother-
hood in Cairo and has had an interview with the Supreme
Guide. He has met Brother Mahmoud Labib Bey, who prom-
ised he would let him visit the Brotherhood camp in Gaza
and Khan Younis and take the necessary pictures. It is re-
quested that he be taken to Brother Mahmoud Labib Bey, so
that he might visit the camp with him.
God's Mercy and Blessings Be with You!
From the Green Shirts I obtained an identity card with my
photograph, in addition to a similar letter signed by Hussein,
reading:
The bearer of this is Mr. , an American-Armenian pho-
tographer, who came to Egypt and visited our party, and took
some pictures to publish in the American magazines. Despite
the fact that the Arab League had cleared him, we [also] in-
vestigated his actions, and found that his mission is cultural
only. ... He may be permitted to take photographs that the
The Marxist Underground 137
Arab Mu/ahedeen [Holy Warriors] may think [will] help their
cause in the world.
Armed with these letters one from each of the opposing
camps and a card from the Arab League accrediting me as a
correspondent, an Ikhwan membership button showing the
Koran and the crossed swords, as well as a green beret and
armband of the Green Shirts, I felt reasonably safe. I might
add that I also had a notarized statement certifying my Chris-
tian religion, and a large button showing the Mufti and the
Arab colors.
Another stroke of good luck befell me when Hussein Aboul
Fath, publisher of AI Misri, one of Egypt's leading newspa-
pers, asked me to serve as a special Palestine correspondent,
and gave me a letter of introduction. With the help of this,
I obtained a document even more valuable to me: a letter of
approval from the Mufti's own headquarters, the Arab Higher
Committee, attesting to my sympathy with the Arab cause. I
added this endorsement to my growing collection.
Then, one night at my hotel, I found a message to tele-
phone Hussein.
"Tomorrow the boys are leaving! Be ready! Come early!"
he screamed excitedly.
I spent a feverish night packing, discarding excess items,
writing letters and destroying others. I assembled my precious
notes and film negatives in tightly packed bundles and pkced
false labels on them. I put beside my bed an Arab Jchaffiya
that I would wear, and my Green Shirt armband. To hold my
various credentials, I sewed secret pockets in the nondescript
khaki uniform I had bought. Just as I had finished listing a
number of small items I had to buy, the donkey brayed. It
was tomorrow already. I grinned. I had heard that donkey for
the last time.
My liberation came at six o'clock on the morning of March
31.
Allah rahimf Allah is indeed merciful!
(CHAPTER VIII)
OFF FOR THE HOLY WAR!
*7f we Moslems choose to spit on the Jews we could
drown them. . . . We will crush the microbe of
Zionism forever. . . . You will see how we fight
like Allah's own messengers!"
Arab man-on-the-street
CAIRO'S mood, the hour before our departure, was one of
excitement or terror depending on your religion. Jews were
imprisoned because they were Zionists, and beaten on streets
because they were Jews. They huddled in their homes, afraid
to leave, afraid to worship on the Sabbath because the Ikhwan
had spread rumors that synagogues were used for "plotting."
Newspapers daily whipped up new excitement with news
from Palestine: FIERCE BATTLE IN HOLY CITY'S NO-MAN'S
LAND. . . . HAIFA EXPRESS BLOWN UP AGAIN. . . . MARTIAL
LAW PROCLAIMED. . . . There were celebrations as news of
the dynamiting of the Jewish Agency building in Jerusalem,
by a car carrying TNT and "flying an American flag/' was an-
nounced, and later when Arabs ambushed a large convoy near
Bethlehem, seized scores of vehicles, and killed many Jews.
Under Arab League sponsorship, Fawzy Bey el Kawoukjy
(who had spent the war years in Germany, marrying there )
had begun to attack with his Yarmuk Army of Liberation.
1 For other details of his stay in Germany, see Chapter XXII.
Off for the Holy War! 139
Arabs everywhere were confident of victory. They gloated
over their arms, their money, their numbers. "If we Moslems
choose to spit on the Jews we could drown them/' one said
contemptuously. From another: "We are like a ball of snow.
We have just begun to roll. We will crush the microbe of
Zionism forever."
The Arab Goliath of eight States and forty-five million
people would win over a tiny, sausage-shaped, "militarily in-
defensible" area, encircled by Arabs, and containing 650,000
poorly armed Jews and a fifth column of at least as many
Arabs. There was no doubt that the Arabs would win easily.
They said so.
WE'RE OFF AT LAST
A TAXI brought me to Green Shirt headquarters early in the
morning of April 1. It was a scene of wild confusion. Excited
orders were being shouted every moment. Two telephones
jangled constantly. I announced myself to Ahmed Hussein
and also to Moustafa, who had acquired a pistol and a car-
tridge belt. After this, I waited quietly by the door. Nothing
in the Arab world, I knew, is done quickly or on time. What-
ever the Arab's other talents, if there is a complex or a long
way around, he is likely to take it instead of the simple and
efficient way. Then, too, the average Arab finds it difficult to
subordinate his fierce independence to the demands of team-
work. Two instincts: to rebel against an order, or to give one
himself, clash within him immediately. The result is often
a great deal of verbal thunder, but little actual accomplish-
ment.
And so, I waited patiently for the snowball to start rolling.
Shortly after noon, Hussein hurried up to me. "Do you have
your camera?" I patted my hip pocket "Good," he said.
"Come with me."
140 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
We hastened to two waiting automobiles. Hussein, his of-
ficers, Moustafa, Sheikh Azaayim, and I climbed into them,
and off we went. We arrived at a quarter dense with milling
natives, the women completely covered, despite the sweltering
heat, in black clothing, and hordes of sticky children every-
where. Excitement reigned, with screaming and screeching
going on everywhere. On the narrow dirt street, a half dozen
sturdy American-made trucks were lined up. Everybody was
directing the loading of tins of gasoline, sacks of flour and
grain, onions, olives, Vickers machine-guns, and rifles. Dressed
incongruously in riding breeches, trim American military coat
(obtainable in Cairo's bazaars for five dollars) , and white flow-
ing headdress, Sheikh Azaayim, leader of the Followers of
Truth, pitched in and began to direct all the directors no
easy job!
"Artour, Artour!" It was Hussein. "Take pictures. We are
making history!"
Catching quicksilver is far easier than getting Arabs to pose
naturally for a group photo. The camera must be quicker than
the Arab, which is impossible! They strut, they simper, they
push one another to get in the front. Finally they line up like
a jumbled mass of upright sticks, each in a theatrical pose. I
took a number of such pictures, with Arabs three layers deep,
Ahmed Hussein, Sheikh Azaayim and Moustafa in front. . . .
I confess I was getting to like Moustafa more and more. He
was a bora leader and always seemed to be calm. I kept close
to him.
Above the din someone started to yell "Yallah/" It was
taken up by the Followers of Truth, by the men, the women,
the children. The native quarters rang with "Yallah/" It's a
universal Arab phrase, meaning "Let's go!"
Two hundred of us piled into the trucks. Everybody was
screaming at the top of his voice. Women leaned out of the
long-shuttered windows waving ecstatically at us. Then they
suddenly began emiting shrill tremolo cries, their tongues
rapidly darting in and out, palms clapping their mouths,
Of for the Holy War! 141
American Indian fashion. It is a native custom called zag-
hareed. An old man with fierce features brandished a thick
cane and yallah/d us on. The trucks started their grinding
motors, adding to the racket. And now, like a cacophonous
orchestra, came the noise of rasping horns, followed by chil-
dren screaming, and mothers squealing to get them into the
doorways. The six roaring motors sounded like a squadron of
B-29's. Clouds of dust swept up, hiding the houses, the
women, and the children from view. Our send-off was nothing
short of triumphal. I wondered, fleetingly, if the Followers of
Truth would return the same way.
We rode through narrow, twisting streets and then our
cavalcade of trucks turned into a broad boulevard. Banners
flying, the Followers of Truth broke into a chant: "We are go-
ing to fight for Allah, and Allah will protect us from harm/*
They kept it up, word for word, as we roared toward the heart
of Cairo, speeded on by deafening cheers from the crowds. We
stopped all traffic at every intersection. The trucks screeched
to a halt in a highly congested area. A crowd collected. Men
broke through to the front and began to deliver impassioned
speeches. "We want to come with you. . . . Kill them till the
ground is red. . . . Bring Palestine back with you. . . ."
"Artour, Artour!" It was Moustafa waving me off the truck.
"I've been recognized," was my first thought.
"Hurry up," Moustafa called. "They want you/'
I began clambering down.
"Hurry, Artour," I felt a violent tugging. "They want you
to take pictures!"
I almost hugged Moustafa. ... I saw that we were in
front of the office of El Ahram, a Cairo daily. It was dusk. A
satisfactory photograph would be difficult. I called a chunky
Follower of Truth, and made him bend over to serve as a tri-
pod. Green Shirterjs, Followers of Truth, Hussein, Azaayim, a
policeman, and people off the sidewalk lined up in the usual
jumble. My reputation as a photographer was at stake. "Hold
these people still for just one second," I begged Moustafa.
142 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
How he ever did it is a tribute to his genius for command. He
also went so far as to order the man whose back I was using
to stop breathing.
I hastily shot several one-second exposures. I took the film
into the El Ahram and gave instructions. Eventually I saw
the printed photograph. To my gratification it came out sur-
prisingly clear.
''As our official photographer, you must sit up in front with
us/' Moustafa announced. "Don't worry about your bags. I
am in charge of this truck/' He spoke to the men on top. They
carefully covered my luggage with blankets, and one of them
was held accountable.
TEA, DRUG, AND HASHEESH
THE sun had set in a blaze of golden flame and the horizon
was still glowing. Our trucks rolled past the outskirts of Cairo
and rumbled into the darkness. I was squeezed in between
Moustafa and the driver. Behind us the Followers of Truth
kept up their monotonous, rhythmic chant: "We are going to
fight for Allah, and Allah will protect us from harm/'
"The Jews are praying too/' I said. "To which side will
Allah listen?"
"To ours/' Moustafa said. "You will see how we fight like
Allah's own messengers!"
Our driver, a plump Bedouin, presently complained that he
was getting tired. At the next village we stopped in front of a
"smoke house." It was a dirt-brown little place, serving as a
restaurant, coffee house, gossip hangout and something
more. Fellahs in dirty gallabiyas- leaned against the walls, or
sat on the earthen floor or in crude, straw-bottomed chairs,
feet dangling, alternately spitting and smoking the nargileh,
the water-pipe. Others were drinking a syrupy, tar-black tea,
which acted like a mild narcotic.
I saw our driver go straight to the proprietor behind a grimy
Off for the Holy War! 143
counter, a deformed man with a closed eye. A few minutes
later he returned, holding a tiny package of brown paper. He
kissed it with a loud smacking of the lips, and carefully put
it in his inside pocket. We drove on. . . . He was a happy
man now, humming a tune.
"Did he drink tea?" I asked Moustafa.
"No, not tea/' he answered mysteriously.
I could no longer contain my curiosity. "What did he take?"
"Hasheesh/ 7
"How often does he use it?"
"All the time. It keeps him awake, and gives him a feeling
that he is strong and has no worries/'
"But isn't it habit-forming?"
Moustafa shrugged his shoulders. "He doesn't think about
it when he takes it."
Our driver had paid fifty cents for a few grams.
We drove through the night, halting at long intervals to see
that all the trucks were with us. The chanting had stopped
now. Under the moonlight the Followers of Truth slept and
snored on the grain sacks. At one o'clock we arrived in Is-
mailia, crossing-point of the Suez Canal. Palestine was 140
miles to the northeast, across the desert sands. Not far from
here Moses and the Israelites, fleeing from Pharaoh, camped
before crossing the Red Sea. But this was no time for such
reflections. We were all weary from the long day and its ex-
citement, anxious to cross the canal by ferry that very night
and set up camp in the Sinai Desert. The trucks pulled up un-
der pine groves that lined the canal. Green Shirts and Fol-
lowers of Truth got off the trucks, arrayed themselves against
the trees, the banks, the truck, and relieved themselves.
The Suez Canal proved our temporary Waterloo. Through
some technicality, the customs official would not let us
through. Perhaps* everything hadn't yet been tried a little
baksheesh, bribe, for instance? Ma'alesh/ No matter, it could
wait until morning. Followers of Truth spread out their
blankets on the very places they had watered and pulled
144 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
them over their heads. Shrouded, immobile figures, they lay
grotesquely along the roadway and in the clump of pines.
I had no blanket, so I curled up on the driver's seat of our
truck. The night was cold. I was wearing my nondescript khaki
uniform and my flowing Ichaffiya. Unable to sleep, I walked
to the canal's edge and dipped my fingers into the water. It
was surprisingly warm under the cold air. I sat down by the
bank and pulled my knees up to my chest. I stuffed the cuffs
of my trousers inside my socks and pulled up the socks in an
attempt to husband as much warmth as possible. I sat there,
huddled up and shivering. The ferry that would take us over
tomorrow was moored to the bank on my right. The moon
kissed the shimmering waters, but its light made the desert
beyond seem all the more bleached and forbidding. I could
see the road snaking from the opposite bank and losing itself
in the bleak Sinai waste. A merchant ship churned slowly up
the canal, its lights ablaze, moving through the water with a
soft muffled sound. The waves lapped softly against the shore;
then all was stillness again. There was only a tiny light gleam-
ing in the customs office; nothing in the adjoining tent where
Sheikh Azaayim slept, apart from his men. Six of his men
guarded the entrance. In the dimness I could see the others.
Moustafa, I knew, was somewhere among them.
I returned to my truck. The hasheesh-drunk driver was
slumped over the wheel snoring peacefully. I dozed off in fits
and starts. The cold drove me out again, prowling about for
warmth. Then the sun broke over the bleached Sinai sands,
a radiant, blazing sun that brought with its warmth, life,
hunger. The water and the ferry took shape, and the birds
began their chirping in the pine grove. It was also time for
the Followers of Truth to water the roadbanks, en masse.
Moustafa and I went to the bank and washed in the salt
water. I loaned him my comb. "Keep it, Moustafa, I have an-
other one/' He was grateful. Almost anything I said or did
for him evoked his gratitude.
I noticed now that there were twelve Green Shirt regulars.
Off for the Holy War! 145
(I counted myself among them, as distinguished from the
Followers of Truth.) We were more Europeanized. Our cloth-
ing (except mine) was mostly United States army surplus, or
parts thereof, with Green Shirt insignia. We didn't chant
about Allah protecting us from harm. Nearly all spoke some
English. In addition to Moustafa, there was Captain Zaki,
wearing an Egyptian army uniform, who was now "on leave/'
like hundreds of others. There was Sabri, Moustafa's closest
friend, and Mahmoud, the most dapper amongst us. I found
myself with these four most of the time.
"Let's eat," Moustafa said.
While Captain Zaki and Sheikh Azaayim haggled with the
customs officials, seven of us climbed a near-by sand dune and
sat down to breakfast. It consisted of black olives, raw onions,
and stale femaj thin, brownish, round-shaped bread, a half
inch thick. We spread the food on a newspaper and devoured
it in record time. Captain Zaki and the sheikh met us with
long faces. The customs officials were adamant. They had re-
ceived special orders from the Ministry of Interior not to let
us through.
"Is it because I, an American, am with you?" I asked
Moustafa.
"No, Artour. There are other reasons. We will camp at
Ismailia, and sneak into Palestine in small groups. YallahJ"
"Yallah! YalZah/ Yallahf
The call served as a bugle cry. Nothing had been unloaded,
so we clambered into the trucks, drove through Ismailia's busi-
ness district, and on to an outlying mud-built village that
comprised the native quarter. This was to be home for the
next four days, while we devised plans to steal into Palestine.
BEHIND THE NATIVE CURTAIN
FOLLOWERS of Truth encamped on the street, in front of
a grocery store. The grocer provided them with a huge tent
146 CAJBO TO DAMASCUS
of Oriental rugs and canopies. While Sheikh Azaayim stayed
at the home of the grocer, as a distinguished guest, we of the
Green Shirts twelve strong were directed to a building near
by, where we were jammed into a tiny-windowed room about
fifteen feet square, with a low ceiling, one bed, and a divan.
The people about us lived with their animals, went to bed
with them, and woke up at the same hour with them. Nearly
every native was barefooted, and went to bed unwashed, got
up the next morning and went through the grime of the
streets, and then went to bed again without ever bathing his
body or feet, until the dirt and dung caked on them and
formed a leathery protective coating. I was convinced that soap
and water alone could never remove it. The street on which
we made our home was typical of provincial Egypt. All day
long, adults urinated against the walls, while children and
teen-agers splotched their excrement anywhere, usually near
the base of the walls, so that it was positively unsafe to walk
anywhere but in the middle of the street. Even though the
dung soon dried in the intense heat of day, swarms of green-
black flies always festered there, especially when someone
stepped on the mounds. Garbage was cast indiscriminately in
the streets. All day long women threw panfuls of house water
into the streets. Ma'alesh/
Hordes of children played among the refuse, and the in-
evitable droppings of donkeys, dogs, cats, chickens, camels,
and horses. Pitiful, scab-covered, undersized children with
running eyes scurried about, sores untreated, hair uncombed
week after week till it was matted like the underside of a pig.
They spilled out of their homes in the morning like ants from
an anthill. They looked exactly as the night before, and the
morning before, and the night before that. Their clothes, con-
sisting sometimes of underwear, but usually only a nightshirt,
had apparently not been washed since they had been sewn
into garments. The first morning I saw a child, its face covered
with scabs, its nose running. I saw the same child in the
evening with the matter solidifying beneath his nose down
Of for the Holy War! 147
to the lips. The next morning he was the same, save that a
fresh layer was being added to the collection of dirt of the
last few days.
As for the women, they seemed to be the main repository of
filth. Whenever they washed usually in a contaminated river
they went into the water dressed, and in groups, washing
their dirty clothes and dirty bodies at the same time. Clay or
a piece of soft wood usually served as soap. In many villages
the women never washed thoroughly except on the occasion
of their marriage and once a year at the feast of Bairam. It was
comforting to see them go around with faces veiled, for the
few who were uncovered were revoltingly ugly.
It was within ten miles of our quarters that the first death
in Egypt's cholera epidemic of 1947 occurred a small native
village, like ours!
The food we ate was primitive, typical native fare. Our
staple diet was tamia, ground chickpeas mixed with parsley
and onions, seasoned with garlic and blazing-hot pepper, and
fried patty-shape like hamburgers. We had fasoulia, red kid-
ney-beans, the poor man's food because it was so cheap. We
also had fool, fava-beans. We had fool and fasoulia, morning
noon and night, with the addition of raw onions and black
olives. I had no idea how the food was prepared, for no man
dared go into the kitchen where the grocer's wife and relatives
cooked our rations. At times I wondered about the water we
drank. Such things had better be left to Allah, who saw every-
thing anyway. I thought that if I survived this ordeal Fd sur-
vive anything.
Our first night here came at the end of a hot and dusty day.
A tiny gas-lamp cast its yellow glow over one comer of the
cell we called home. As the other eleven Green Shirts came
in, they removed their shoes and stockings and wriggled their
toes to let the air circulate between them. Barefooted, some
went to the dark fenced-off enclosure in the courtyard. This
was the community toilet. You brought your own paper. At
night a tiny dim lantern hung inside, but only the buzzing
148 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
swarms of flies could possibly see any better by it. The stench
that rushed up from the center opening of the sewer was ab-
solutely unbearable. Ma'alesh/ You were supposed to get used
to it.
Upon returning, they sat down at the table without further
ceremony or washing. The table was a circular piece of smooth
wood, about three feet in diameter and set eight inches above
the floor in the center of our room. The food was piled high
on platters. We seated ourselves crosslegged. Then, yalhh!
We reached with our hands. First come, first served. I learned
to eat Arab fashion, without knife, spoon, or fork. I would dip
a piece of flat bread, Jcma/, into the common pool, holding it
between the thumb and three fingers, scoop the food with a
half turn of the wrist and bring it up quickly, tilting the head
backward to keep the juices from running down the corners
of my mouth. At first aim, I miscarried the scoopf ul of fasoulia,
and it burst above my nose like shrapnel, distributing the
beans all over my face. Ma'aleshJ I pushed them into my
mouth with fingers that were greasy anyway. A few sessions
made me fairly skillful though I lacked speed and finesse. In
due time I acquired both.
"You are now a full Arab," Moustafa complimented me.
Next day it became evident that we'd remain stranded. I
went with Moustafa, Captain Zaki, Sabri, and Mahmoud to
Ismailia. I found it a colorful and, in spots, a pretty little city.
There was an abundance of water, and some of the tree-lined
boulevards were extremely attractive. English officers lived
here with their families. Soldiers from near-by camps were
everywhere.
We were ravenously hungry, so I treated everyone to a
lunch of kebab square cuts of skewered lamb after which
we moved to a sidewalk caf 6 and Moustafa ordered coffee and
tea. Native life ebbed and flowed around us. Children carried
blue beads to ward off the evil eye; here a cobbler was soling
shoes with old tire rubber; there a tinsmith fashioned house-
ware from discarded cans; from the entrance of a grimy
Off for the Holy War! 149
butcher-shop chunks of raw meat hung from iron hooks. A
lively backgammon game was in progress at an adjoining
table, with a half dozen tanned, turbaned fellaheen watching;
a camel train passed by, each camel linked to another by
ropes; down the street, a house was being built with mud
bricks. A fight started at the corner. The rush-bottomed cafe
chairs were emptied.
Moustafa had been suffering for some time with a sore toe.
In his last encounter with the Haganah a bullet had grazed it.
He showed me the wound, which had become infected.
"You had better see a good doctor right now before it gets
worse/ 7
"I will go to the barber/ 7 Moustafa said. After our coffee,
we all went to the barber. While Captain Zaki and Mahmoud
were being shaved, the barber opened Moustafa's bandages.
Using only warm water to wash the toe, and no antiseptic of
any kind, he lanced it with a jack-knife. Then he used waste
cotton to bandage it.
"That man is worse than a butcher, Moustafa/'
"Never mind, Artour. He's an Arab doctor/ 7
"Yallah/"
Yallah this time was to the outskirts of Ismailia, where
Mahmoud said he wanted to visit relatives. Zaki stayed be-
hind, giving the excuse that he was tired. We walked for
nearly an hour through the broiling sun, through one native
quarter after another, going slowly because Moustafa's toe was
extremely painful.
"Mahmoud must love his relatives to walk all this distance
in this dust!"
"He loves them very much/' Moustafa and Sabri changed
glances.
At last we reached the outskirts, and came to the edge of a
large empty lot. Beyond this I saw more of the squat, mud-
baked huts that made up the native quarters. This sand-lot
was particularly malodorous, or perhaps the wind was blowing
the wrong way. As we walked, a new form of stench filled the
150 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
air. It wasn't offal. This was something more pungent, awe-
some, sickening, carnal, like a decomposing cat. Now I be-
came aware of what seemed to be a hole, about fifty feet
square, ahead of us. Our path skirted to the left of the sand-
pit. As we came to it, I took one glance and jerked my head
away. The pit was filled with the rotting flesh of dogs, cats,
horses, cows, and other dead animals. It was an open burial
ground. Part of the carrion still clung to the bones. Other
parts had been eaten away by the neighborhood cats and dogs.
Strands of fur hung to the decomposing flesh. The sun had
bleached white the skulls and skeletons, and the stench that
rose to God's blue sky was the most nauseating in my experi-
ence. . . .
"Where is this relative of Mahmoud's?" I yelled un-
controllably.
"On the other side of this field, the first house/ 7 Moustafa
said, smiling.
At long last we reached the first house. Instead of veiled
women, we saw women with their faces exposed. Three trol-
lops were sitting on the stoop, their legs wide apart. It re-
quired no effort to see that they were shaven in keeping with
an Arab custom that is said to apply to all classes of women,
and is intended to keep them clean in the hot climate.
"Are these his relatives? An hour's walk across that stench
hole to visit these/" I screamed at Moustafa.
"If you want to learn Arab life, you must know about
Mahmoud's relatives/'
Mahmoud looked the girls over, chose one, and went inside
with her. Moustafa and Sabri talked to the other two. Busi-
ness was slow at this time of day, for the sun overhead was
blazing, and only a frustrated fool like Mahmoud would make
the venture.
"The women have, visitors when it's cool, from six o'clock
till midnight/'
We waited a half hour . . . three quarters of an hour . . .
one full hour!
Off for the Holy War! 151
"What can Mahmoud be doing there all this time? Surely
your women can't be different from ours/'
"But our ways are different," Moustafa insisted.
At last Mahmoud emerged. He looked as though he had
been through a steam bath.
"What's different about your ways?" I asked Moustafa a
little later.
"First of all Mahmoud had hasheesh. Then he bought the
woman some. This makes much difference in what happens
afterward. You cannot cut short your visit. You can't/"
Moustafa and Sabri giggled. "This is why our method is dif-
ferent, and why Mahmoud was in so long. . . . After the
woman/' Moustafa continued to explain, "he had a hot bath.
Now he can fight the Jew with a clean body."
MUTINY!
BUT it was I who almost died with a dirty body, for the next
night I was almost stabbed, with my back to the wall. . . .
After three days and three nights of forced confinement in
cramped quarters and continual frustration, the sizzling Arab
temper provided the final catalytic. Sharp distinctions arose
between East and West: Followers of Truth on the one hand,
and the Green Shirts on the other.
Sheikh Azaayim, leader of the Followers of Truth, was run-
ning low on the food we had brought. And the grocer, a tack-
headed capitalist, was showing little appreciation for our noble
mission. He was gouging Azaayim with high prices for addi-
tional food, rental, and incidentals. "My" side blamed Azaa-
yim for botching the whole thing. The sheikh, with more
truth, blamed the Green Shirts for staging a public parade
and inviting the wrath of government officials who, mindful of
the Green Shirt record during the war, had no desire to harbor
any armed and trained private armies in Egypt. Moustafa and
152 CAIKO TO DAMASCUS
Captain Zaki threatened to leave, depriving the Followers of
Truth of military leadership. The sheikh insisted they must
remain. "After all, I brought you here. Fve paid you. I've fed
you and housed you in comfort." The Green Shirts countered
by saying they had left Cairo to fight the Jew in Palestine, not
stagnate in a pigsty. The atmosphere was charged with ten-
sion. East and West henchmen rarely spoke now, except in
anger, hands on revolvers or daggers. I tried to be friendly to
both sides, and keep out of the family quarrel. One reads about
"explosive 7 ' situations. This was it! If anything blew up, I
knew Fd be in the middle of it, for the Arab temper, usually
quiescent, once aroused becomes blind in its passions.
That night once again I heard the chant: "We are going to
fight for Allah and Allah will protect us from harm/' As we
weren't going anywhere, I wondered why the war cry this time
of night. It continued for an hour and was driving us to
desperation.
"They don't know any better." Moustafa said. "They are
fanatics!"
I decided to investigate.
"Don't stay away long," Moustafa warned. "They don't like
us and especially they don't like Americans. Don't go inside
their tent."
I walked past their sentry. "Assalamu aleilcum. Peace be
upon you," I said.
"Wa aleilcum salam," he grunted. "Upon you peace."
I opened the tent flap. The sight was common enough.
Against a background of colored canopies and rugs, the
fellaheen fighters, crosslegged on mats, were swaying rhythmi-
cally, in perfect accompaniment to the weird chant. Their eyes
were half-closed as if under trance, their faces feverish. This
was Jehad, in the making. I had no doubt that some of them
had taken hasheesh. The leaders were reading responsively to
the chant from dog-eared copies of the Koran. Some Followers
of Truth were in their American army surplus khaki, in full
battle dress, with steel helmets, cartridge belt, daggers and all.
Of for the Holy War! 153
I had already photographed one of them with his "gizzard
slitter" the name I gave to a particularly ugly dagger, the
handle of which was a brass knuckle. There seemed to be
stranger elements among the Followers of Truth. They were
wearing calico skullcaps and gallabiyas. These vicious thugs
had arrived the day before. Moustafa told me he suspected
them of being imported to fight the Green Shirts if a show-
down battle developed.
The chanting stopped as I entered. Glares took its place. I
offered to take pictures. The Followers obeyed in surly fashion,
not because they liked me or wanted to be photographed, but
because Sheikh Azaayim had approved my photography. I took
several flashlight photos. Then I tried to leave. But they
stepped up and wanted to see the prints at once, poking their
long dirty nails into the shutter opening. Trying to protect my
precious camera, I explained somehow that they would have
them by sabah, by morning. They went away, sullen, and I
stepped into the night.
While inside I had noticed movements at the farther end
of the tent, a closed portion, with figures constantly brushing
against the canopies. I passed the sentry and went to the
farther end of the tent to investigate. I was about to lift the
flap, when I felt myself jerked up by the neck to an upright
position and slammed against the wall of the grocery store.
At the same time a sharp hard object was jabbed against my
left side. A scant six inches from my nose was the outline of a
frenzied face and bared teeth. Hot, carnal breath, and a hot
volley of words I did not understand poured out at me. Strong
fingers with sharp nails were tightened around my throat, so
that breathing became difficult, and I was unable to cry out.
To rip away the choking fingers would, I was sure, have re-
sulted in being jabbed with the knife. My only defense lay in
dirty alley fighting.
I was about to kick my assailant viciously in the groin, and
simultaneously push away the knife blade, when I heard the
cracking of bone against bone, and a knuckled fist smashed
154 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
against the face. It was Moustafa to the rescue! The Follower
of Truth hit the dust. As he came up, knife brandished in
mid-air, Moustafa whipped out his revolver and pointed it
straight at the heart of the enraged fellah. In low, guttural
words, hardly audible beyond our intimate circle, I heard
Moustafa growl at my would-be assassin the equivalent of:
"One more step, and you're a dead son of Allah!"
"Go back into the room, Artour/' Moustafa commanded.
I waited for him at the entrance to the grocer's home.
"Now Followers of Truth will surely try to kill you,
Moustafa/' I said.
"Not me alone, but you, too, and all the Green Shirts/* he
answered calmly. "We will have to be ready for them. Come."
I touched him on the arm. "Moustafa, you saved my life.
What I have is yours. Wish it, and you shall have it." I
meant every word. At the same time, I was following Arab
tradition.
Moustafa hesitated. "I want your friendship, Artour/'
"You shall have my loyalty as long as I live/'
We hurried to our suffocating flea-hold and alerted the
boys. They made sure revolvers were loaded, daggers ready,
and used what little furniture there was to barricade the door.
This immediately cut off our only escape because our single
barred window looked into a blind alley.
"I am sorry to have caused you all the trouble/' I said to
Moustafa and Zaki. "If I go away maybe things will quiet
down. Til go gladly/'
"Don't be afraid for our sake/' Moustafa said. "If you are
afraid for yourself, then we can't stop you from going."
"I'll stay."
In my shirt pocket, over my heart, were three little objects,
chained together. First, a medallion with the Madonna and
Child of the Armenian Church. It had been tied to my bed-
post as a child, and Mother believed the Maryam Asdvadza-
rczayr yev Chiistos (Mary, Mother of Jesus, and the Christ
Child) would protect me on my journey. Attached to it was
Off for the Holy War! 155
a St. Christopher's medal that a Catholic friend had given me
for the same purpose. The third object was a Jewish mezuzah,
a tiny metal tube in which was a paper scroll with the Ten
Commandments inscribed upon it, given to me by a Jewish
friend to insure my safe return. With these in my hand, I
silently prayed now, summoning all three faiths to my pro-
tection. Sheikh Azaayim had got drunk earlier in the evening,
and was now sleeping it off. It wasn't likely that his men
would attack without his orders, but anything might provide
the spark and touch off the Jehad-crazed, hasheesh-maddened
Followers any minute.
With the boys listening to every sound to forestall a sur-
prise attack, there was no sleep that night. Moustafa and I
talked in whispers. "What made you come after me at just
the right second?" I asked.
"I don't know. You were gone a long time, when suddenly
I got a call inside of me. It must have been Allah. You are a
lucky Armenian, Artour."
"A lucky American/' I corrected. "By the way, Moustafa,
what was going on so secretly in the tent? Were they pray-
ing?"
"No, it was long past the hour of the last prayer."
"Then what could they be doing?" I insisted.
"Maybe they were visiting with relatives," Moustafa said
with a smile.
"Male or female?"
Moustafa looked at me strangely. "Male."
Through the barred window we could see the first light of
dawn. We moved the furniture away from the door, opened
it, and Moustafa stole out. He returned with Arab bread,
which is delicious when fresh, but like plastic when it is not,
and a large pkte of ground chickpeas.
"After we eat, we leave," Captain Zaki said. "If we don't
go now, there'll be blood in the streets. We didn't come here
to fight Arabs."
"We will take a train to Rafa," Moustafa said. Rafa was the
156 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
last town on the Egyptian side of the Palestine border. From
there we would cross the border to Beersheba and then trust
to luck to reach Jerusalem.
We finished in silence. The boys packed their things.
"Yallahr
Quickly and silently we slipped out, circled the tent jammed
with Followers of Truth, and in hushed single file walked past
the mud-built houses. Dawn had come in full glory. Life be-
gan to stir about us; rickety shutters flew open, squeaking on
their hinges. Women splattered the streets with the contents
of bedpans, keeping the dust down at the same time. Donkeys
and children had already littered the streets. We looked be-
hind. A squad of Followers of Truth were lurking in our rear.
They grew in numbers as we walked quickly, close to the walls
where in a way, it was safer, though unclean. Soon we lost
ourselves in Ismailia.
"We are now going to visit a rich Moslem and ask for
money for train tickets/' Zaki said. "We want you to come
with us. Maybe he will like to have his picture taken/ 7
We went to an expensively furnished home. Our host, a
portly Arab, eyed us all with suspicion. He wanted to know
what the lone American was doing. Perhaps I was a foreign
agent! Oh, no, Moustafa assured him. I was Exhibit A an
American who hated the Jews so much that he had come
5,500 miles to fight them. I was also a wonderful photogra-
pher. The wealthy Arab wasn't impressed. He had been
solicited before, and was cautious with his money. Ultimately,
he proved to be a member of the Ikhwan, with no love for the
Green Shirts. He offered us fine Arab coffee. Otherwise, our
mission was a failure.
"We will have to pay for the tickets ourselves/' Zaki said.
Late in the afternoon we took the train for El Qantara, the
Suez Canal terminal for trains to Palestine. It was night when
we arrived. Moustafa made us wait while he went to the
customs office to fix matters. I had explained that I could not
hope to pass with my cameras because I had not been asked
Of for the Holy War!
to declare them when I first arrived in Egypt. I had also told
Moustafa that owing to our delay in Ismailia, my Egyptian
visa had expired. Normally, both were grave offenses.
"Don't worry about anything/' Moustafa said.
To my astonishment, the usually bureaucratic Egyptian
custom officials chalked my bags without opening them. With
Moustafa again supervising, my passport was stamped, and I
was through. Getting on the train became a real problem.
It was packed tighter than a New York subway at rush hour.
The door was impossible to open, so Moustafa and I scrambled
in through the windows. The other Green Shirts scattered to
other cars. Captain Zaki, being large and plump, found the
window too tight for his girth. He had worked his way through
to his hips and then he was stuck. The train whistle blew
for the third time. The train lurched forward: with might and
main we pushed the captain out, then desperately Moustafa
and I began to remove baggage from the doorway, throwing
it in every direction, with no heed to the shouting owners.
When Zaki finally leaped aboard, the train was already past
the platform.
"FORGET YOU ARE AMERICAN"
I WAS standing chest-high in baggage. I had long lost trace
of my own. The three of us stood together now amid the in-
furiated passengers who were screaming for their luggage. We
had landed in a third-class compartment. There was no light.
As soon as the train got beyond the town, we were in pitch-
black darkness. My flashlight was a life-saver. Gradually every-
one found his belongings, barricaded himself behind them,
and a semblance of quiet was restored. Our companions were
a farmer, two soldiers, a Palestinian policeman, a boy sleeping
on baggage, and two women veiled despite the midnight
blackness squatting beside half a dozen baskets filled with
158 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
vegetables and personal belongings. As luck would have it, I
was seated between a basket filled with dried garlic done up in
braids and a basket of reeking scallions. Caught between these
stenches, I stuck my nose in a corner of the window. After
several hours of this, the fresh air made me so hungry we
hadn't had supper that I asked Moustafa for some of the
food we carried.
"Sabri has it. But wait, Artour, well get food someplace/'
Moustafa's neighbor was the Palestinian policeman, wear-
ing the Icalpafc, black woolen headpiece. Moustafa engaged him
in conversation. As he talked I could see by the movement of
his glowing cigarette tip that the Palestinian was repeatedly
turning in my direction. He was so touched by the richly em-
bellished story of an American travelling 5,500 miles to fight
the Jehad side by side with the Arabs' own Holy Warriors,
that Moustafa turned to me:
"He wants to see your beautiful face, Give me your flash-
light/'
By this time, everybody for several layers around had heard
the wondrous tale of the brave and noble American who had
been living with the Arabs and was going to war with them, so
that when Moustafa directed the light on my face, I found
myself the center of attention.
"Allah, Allah." These were sighs of satisfaction.
"But he looks Arab," the Palestinian said. "He must be a
brother Moslem."
"Perhaps we shall make him one soon," Moustafa said sug-
gestively, eying the policeman's basket of food.
"Insh'aflah/ Insh'allah/"
There was no difficulty after that. My flashlight revealed
four loaves of bread, olives, white cheese, halvah, and oranges.
The woman with the scallions made a generous contribution
to our supper. Raw onions, and scallions in particular, have
always caused me distress. But to refuse food offered by an
Arab is tantamount to an insult, especially when done by an
American, I managed the ordeal somehow, proffering my
Off for the Holy War! 159
thanks to the woman and the policeman. In the name of
Allah, I wished them a full larder. "May you never taste of
hunger to the end of your days/' I said through Moustafa.
"Sufra daimeh rnemnoun. May your table always be full,
thank you/'
The train rumbled on with a slow, rhythmic beat. The sky
was clear, and the stars were out in their full splendor. We had
eaten, and now we rested. Quiet had settled over the car,
broken only by snoring, and the endless coughing of the aged.
Someone closed the windows because it was growing cold;
moreover, the Arab prefers to sleep in a warm, air-tight room.
The odor of garlic and scallions, thus kept pure from any con-
tamination by fresh air, reached full flower. My nostrils stung
and my eyes watered. I decided to imitate the Arabs. I stopped
resisting. "It must be kismet/* I said resignedly. Resting my
head against my knapsack, my nose no more than ten inches
from the nearest bouquet of scallions, I asphyxiated myself
to sleep.
The sun was just breaking over a horizon of bleak sand
dunes when our train pulled into Rafa on the frontier sepa-
rating Egypt from Palestine. In ancient days Rafa was a
Byzantine bishopric. Now it was a shambles of native homes.
It was also a rendezvous for narcotic wholesalers. Hasheesh
smugglers, after crossing Palestine, often met here. Those
smuggling the drug by motorboat made their delivery on the
coast near by. Moustafa warned me that the railway station
swarmed with British and Egyptian government agents. Pas-
sengers were usually screened, their baggage rechecked, and
passports reinspected.
"I will carry your bag as my own/' Captain Zaki said. He
was now dressed in the official uniform of an Egyptian army
captain. "Keep the khaffiya on your head. Remember, speak
to no one!"
My heart pounded as I waited. But with my full-grown
mustache, deep tan, wrinkled khaki, I looked as Arab as any-
one on the train. The boys had covered their Green Shirt
160 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
armbands. As we walked on the platform they maneuvered
me into the middle position so that if anyone asked questions
there would be many to answer in Arabic. We trooped past a
gauntlet of inspectors; one of them halted Moustafa, and
asked about us. He was joined by another who made a random
check of our knapsacks. He chose to dig into mine. Happily
it contained nothing but clothing. He spoke to me in Arabic:
Moustafa and Captain Zaki quickly volunteered the answers.
The man waved us on. ... We had passed the last Egyptian
checkpost and were free to go on to Palestine.
"He wanted to know if you have a camera," Moustafa said,
when we were out of earshot. "It is forbidden in a military
zone/'
"From now on/' Zaki added, "tell no one you are from
America. Forget you are an American/ You are an Armenian
from Turkey. Speak only Armenian and Turkish to strangers/*
We headed toward a shanty town on the outskirts of Rafa,
to make arrangements for transportation to Beersheba, Arab
headquarters at the gates of the Negev, the great southern
desert of Palestine. Rafa itself had boomed in the last few
months, and served as an outpost for volunteer fighters, gun-
runners, and Arab refugees already fleeing from Palestine. As
early as the end of March 1948, Cairo was crowded with
wealthy Palestinian refugees, both Moslem and Christian, who
had left their homes voluntarily, even though widespread fight-
ing had not yet broken out. By ten o'clock Moustafa and Zaki
had located a gun-running truck leaving for Beersheba.
Yallah/ We climbed into the truck and rode until we
reached the Palestine border. There we were halted by British
soldiers. Two tanks stood near by. Beyond was a large British
camp. The Green Shirts had now hidden their own guns and
insignia, and posed as native Palestinians. The English went
through the formality of asking: "Any guns on the truck?"
We said: "No," laughing. The soldiers smiled back, took
down our license number and, lifting the wooden barrier, let
us through. We were in Palestine!
Off for the Holy War! 161
As our truck rolled on, I began to itch with more than the
usual vigor. At first I thought it resulted from my desperate
need of a bath. But the itch was a curious kind of an itch.
This was under the arms, and on my back, and stung like tiny
needles. Fleas? When the itch reached the crook of my arm,
I rolled up my sleeve and easily caught the culprits LICE! I
showed them to Moustafa.
"That's nothing/' he said, scratching himself. ''We'll get
DDT when we reach Jerusalem."
"Let's get it around here so that we can sleep tonight."
"I don't think you'll find any. Only the Jews have it." He
grinned. "You have clean blood, Artour. If you didn't, the
lice would not come to you."
"What do you mean?"
"Lice don't come to you if you have syphilis."
I don't know how true this is. On another occasion, while
Moustafa and I were scratching fiercely, he observed: "We
have fleas, Artour."
"How do you know they are fleas?" I asked.
"By the way they bite. Fleas bite different."
I never mastered the distinction, but I learned that psycho-
logically the effect was different. Lice gave one the feeling of
uncleanliness, of guilt. But one laughed off fleas, perhaps be-
cause the pets we had back home usually had fleas in summer,
and no stigma was attached.
But it was no disgrace to get lice in the Arab world. It was
discussed as we discuss a common cold. Bedouin men and
women are lice-ridden from cradle to grave. To meet a Bed-
ouin socially and not match his scratching is, as Moustafa
pointed out, a sign of uncleanliness. For me it was a badge of
success, for it meant that my initiation as a native was now
complete.
We arrived in Beersheba as the shadows deepened in the
west. Moustafa and Zaki reported immediately to the police
station, where we were all cleared. After looking around for a
place to sleep, we located rooms in a Moslem school, already
162 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
occupied by other volunteers. The place was comparatively
clean. I washed thoroughly. Stretching out on an army cot, I
spent my first peaceful" night since leaving Cairo. I slept
soundly, oblivious to the fierce, biting onslaughts of my newly
acquired friends. It showed how much of an Arab I had be-
come!
(CHAPTER IX)
THE HOLY CITY
T pray to Allah to destroy the Jews. I pray to AUah
to punish President Truman because he has been
on the Zionist side. I used to pray against President
Roosevelt, a very bad man. . . . May Balfour and
Roosevelt take the first place in hell Allah, Allah 9
may this be done"
"You sound like a Moslem Republican" I said.
Interview with Sheikh Ismail el Ansaiy
BEERSHEBA marked the southernmost limits of Biblical
Palestine ("from Dan to Beersheba.") Most of its two thou-
sand inhabitants now were Bedouins, or former Bedouins
turned to the comforts of town life. Within a year it was to
become an almost all-Jewish town, as the Arabs fled and
Jewish refugees from Europe were settled there.
Here, in this green, extremely picturesque frontier post and
supply oasis we remained for a few days, to raise funds and ar-
range for transportation to Jerusalem, fifty miles to the north.
It was a pleasant respite. The wide, dusty main street was
lined with trees. Here passed coffee vendors, porters with
stacks of dried skins, and innumerable bronzed Bedouins on
camels. A trading and smuggling center, Beersheba trafficked
in arms and hasheesh, and also boasted several rifle factories,
at this moment working at top speed.
164 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
Not far from Beersheba I saw my first Jewish communal set-
tlement, Kibbutz Beit Eshel. With its well-tended orchards
and green trees, Beit Eshel rose like an oasis from the bleak,
dust-packed Negev desert around it. A Jcibbutz was always
conspicuous by its water tower, silo, and modem farm build-
ings, and contrasted sharply with the squalor of Arab villages.
Moustafa pointed at Beit Eshel with awe. "We have at-
tacked it, but the Jews are well armed. They have built a
Maginot Line around their place and fight you from under
the ground. They are cowards." Later, I was to see astonishing
examples of Jewish ingenuity and understand exactly what
Moustafa meant. "After May 15 Beit Eshel will be ours. The
Egyptian army will make it one with the desert."
"Insh'alhh! Insh'allah! With God's help," I said.
Surrounded by Arabs and desert, a lone sentry in the
wilderness, I could not imagine how Beit Eshel could ever
hold out against massed troops and heavy artillery. 1 Inquiring
discreetly, I learned that the kibbutz had already taken a toll
of attacking Arabs. It was supplied by a daring airlift and
sometimes by food and ammunition convoys that boldly ran
the gauntlet of Arab soldiers all the way from coastal Tel
Aviv, seventy miles across the desert.
I don't know how our boys arranged it, but next day six of
us were invited to lunch by the mayor of Beersheba. His home
was clean and airy, the furniture lined stiffly against the wall
and embalmed in white slipcovers. As usual, we saw no
women. The dining-room table was heaped with huge plat-
ters of food. For dessert, we had bafcjfawa, made of tissue-thin
layers of dough, baked a golden brown and saturated with
nuts and syrup. Prompted by our host, we gorged ourselves for
two hours. It was our most sumptuous meal since Cairo. After
dinner I took a photograph of my dinner companions four-
teen assorted Arabs.
1 But it did. On one occasion the settlement's armory consisted of twelve
rifles and two machine-guns. The Egyptian army attacked in battalion strength
with heavy artillery, and was repeatedly beaten back.
The Holy City 165
Among them was Rashad Y. Sakka, who according to his
card was "Mambe of Municipl Council" of Beersheba. His
English was on a par with his spelling. Sakka looked forward
to the Mufti's seizure of all Palestine. "We have not a better
man. He is a faithful Moslem/' Sakka told me that Mr. and
Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt had visited Beersheba for two days,
dined with a sheikh in his tent, and had been impressed with
Bedouin life.
THE BEDOUIN KING OF BEERSHEBA
IN THE morning of the third day Moustafa asked me to ac-
company him to the home of a rich Arab who might help us
with money and arms. I went with him to a house built solidly
of stone, with windows heavily barred, the lower half of each
window latticed Turkish fashion to enable the women inside
to peer out yet remain invisible to the passerby. We were
halted at the iron door by a sentry. A half dozen other armed
Bedouins sprawled in the courtyard. Another sentry allowed
us no farther than the porch. There we waited for Sheikh
Salaam, a Bedouin tribal chief. He was a short, wizened man
with a face the color of burnt copper. He had tiny, cunning
eyes and a tight and narrow mouth from which the words
came sparingly. He was draped in a flowing black burnous,
gold-braided at the neck. Around his waist was a cartridge
belt, revolver, and a curved dagger, standard Bedouin equip-
ment. He took Moustafa inside with him,
I learned the sheikh's record. Already wealthy through
border traffic, he had bought land cheaply from Bedouins, and
later sold it at extravagant prices to Jews, amassing even greater
wealth. The vengeful Bedouins demanded an accounting. The
sheikh promptly turned against the Jews, and emerged a top
Arab patriot.
Moustafa came away empty-handed from the sheikh. "He is
rich but he does not give baksheesh. He is not patriotic/'
166 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
Moustafa complained bitterly, "His enemies will kill him very
soon."
While Moustafa had attempted to persuade the sheikh to
help us, I had been browsing outside. A short, chunky young
man with a military shirt and leggings sought admission and
was brusquely turned away amid a vicious exchange of words.
I watched from the safety of the doorway as he stood there,
cursing. As he left, he saw me and said gruffly: "Sabah il-Jcher.
Good morning/'
"Ussaid hel sabah nun'allah. May Allah give you a good
morning."
The way I pronounced the words made him turn around.
"Are you English?" he asked.
"La, no. American."
It was the beginning of a stormy friendship that was to alter
the entire course of my adventures with the Arabs. The young
man Paris was from Jerusalem. An idea came to me.
"Meet us at the schoolhouse at noon," I said. "It will be to
your interest."
I told Moustafa about Faris and suggested that we ask
him to take us to Jerusalem. Our boys had no money by this
time; they had counted on Sheikh Azaayim for help; they were
willing now to fight for anybody who would feed and arm
them. Moustafa thought my idea excellent. He had a plan to
enlist the support of Jerusalem Arabs once we reached the
city. Captain Zaki and the boys agreed to let Moustafa go
ahead and arrange matters, while they remained in Beersheba
and tried to enlist local support. When Faris came at noon,
we asked if he would take tie two of us. He agreed.
"To Jerusalem!" Moustafa said, delighted. "Yallah/"
Our credentials were carefully inspected on the way out.
My authorization from AI Misri and the letter from the
Mufti's Arab Higher Committee passed the test. We took the
road north. The brown scorched land all around us spoke of
the barrenness of man's neglect It was covered with out-
croppings of rock and sparse thin grass as far as the eye could
The Holy City 167
reach. The telephone lines had been cut. Later I saw saboteurs
at work Arabs systematically stripping the wires for their
copper content. Thfey would melt them into bullets.
We reached Hebron, the Biblical tombsite of Abraham and
Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, and finally Jacob. In more recent times
Hebron had the dubious distinction of being the first Pales-
tinian town whose Jews were completely exterminated by the
Arabs; this massacre took place in 1929 during the Mufti-
organized attacks, which he directed from Hebron. Built be-
tween two rugged hillsides, the town was a natural fortress,
known for the ferociousness, brutality, and homosexuality of
its inhabitants. The inspection of our papers was severe. I
passed again.
The road from Hebron to Jerusalem traversed ground of
hallowed antiquity. Here was the spot where, under the oak,
Abraham received the three angels and where, later, David was
anointed king. We passed Bethlehem, with its numerous
churches, and beyond it the Well of the Magi, where the Star
that they followed again appeared to the three Wise Men. We
drove past the remains of an aqueduct built by Pontius
Pilate. Then, as we came to Rachel's tomb, near which the
Jews had built Kibbutz Ramat Rahel, Paris suddenly brought
me to the present by commanding sharply: "Get down in the
car! The Jews will shoot if you look out the window/*
ON THE HILL OF EVIL COUNSEL
LATE in the afternoon, as the sun cast its deep shadows over
the countryside, now extraordinarily lovely with its terraced
fields, its freshly furrowed earth, and blossoming orchards of
fig, almond, cherry, and olive trees, we reached the first
Jerusalem roadblock. We drove straight to Faris's home in
Deir Aboutor, a sector built on the lower end of a promontory
called the Hill of Evil Counsel, just outside the Old City of
168 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
Jerusalem. From here the Holy City presented an indescribably
beautiful and majestic panorama, breathtaking in the Biblical
history it encompassed.
On the left was the Jewish-built New City, the striking and
imposing tower of the Young Men's Christian Association,
the luxurious King David Hotel, and clusters of rugged stone
buildings. Beyond, on Biblical Mount Scopus, now kissed by
the setting sun, were the classic modern buildings of the He-
brew University and the Hadassah Hospital. Far to the right
I could see the mountains of Trans-Jordan rising above the
depression of the Dead Sea.
Mount Zion was directly across from us. On the Mount of
Olives was the stately Church of the Ascension, with the
Garden of Gethsemane at its base. David's Tower, the
Citadel, and the massive serrated Old City walls commanded
attention in the foreground. Inside those walls, built in the
shape of a crooked rectangle about a square mile in area, was
the Old City of Jerusalem. From where I stood I could see
the giant Dome of the Rock the Mosque of Omar Islam's
holy shrine, built over the spot where the Prophet is supposed
to have ascended to heaven. Within those Old City walls, too,
were the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Golgotha, the Wail-
ing Wall, and scores of shrines holy to three faiths, which had
made Jerusalem, with its strategic position, the most fought-
over city in the world for twenty centuries and more.
But this was no time for reverie. Fans took us immedi-
ately to the home of his cousin, Hashim. There we had sup-
per, and were put up for the night. When I saw our host wear-
ing the insignia of Ikhwan el Muslimin, I said to him: "I
have met your Moorshid in Cairo. A great man, a very noble
man. May Allah preserve him."
It pleased him immensely.
I found Deir Aboutor bristling with artillery, most of it
hidden for future use, for at this moment a month and more
before the British mandate was to end it was illegal to pos-
sess arms, let alone fire them, although thousands, both Arab
The Holy City 169
and Jew, were doing so. Deir Aboutor was the central Arab
headquarters outside the Old City of Jerusalem. More than
two hundred soldiers were living here in the homes of Arabs
who had fled.
Early the next morning Moustafa and I took a bus for the
Old City, which was held by the Arabs. One could walk the
distance, but it meant passing the Jewish Yemin Moshe sec-
tion outside the city walls. The Arabs had blown up many of
its houses and the Haganah forces, in retaliation, blasted away
at Arab trucks passing over the roads it commanded. Buses
and taxis, however, were not molested. Buses were armor-
plated, with tiny peepholes for windows. The armor was more
psychological than practical, because a bullet fired at a hun-
dred yards could easily penetrate it. To my surprise, Arabs
here not only respected but feared Jewish fighters a far cry
from the bravado I had met in Egypt.
We entered the Old City through Jaffa Gate one of the
seven entrances cut into the great rectangular wall. Moustafa
took me directly to the offices of the Arab Higher Committee,
where I received an identity card. Then, through twisting
cobblestone alleys that passed for streets, lined with bazaars
and tiny cubbyhole workshops, threading our way among ped-
dlers, donkeys, bootblacks, children, natives, walking over the
waste and refuse of centuries littering the Via Dolorosa the
road that Jesus traveled on the way to Golgotha we reached
Raudat el Maaref . This, a former police station, was now Arab
military headquarters in the Old City. How strangely Biblical
history repeated itself, I thought. On this very site Pontius
Pilate had made his headquarters 1,900 years ago. It was to
this spot that Christ was brought in chains before the Roman
governor. This was the first of fourteen stations of the Way
of the Cross. A few dozen yards away He was scourged.
All this was of absorbing interest to me as a Christian from
America, but the filth, the cold commercialism, of the Old
City merchants tarnished the aura of holiness that I had at-
tached to the Holy City. One could buy hand-grenades, bul-
170 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
lets, pistols, rifles, and even larger arms within shadow of
Christendom's holiest shrine, the Church of the Holy Sepul-
chre. Lecherous guides certainly inspired no Christian senti-
ment. Except for isolated spots holy to Christendom, reveren-
tially kept, and truly inspiring to visit, such as the churches,
monasteries, hospices, and mission houses (as well as the cen-
ters revered by the Jews), the Old City was basically Islamic
in culture, mode of living, and psychology.
These were my first impressions as Moustafa and I were
ushered into the presence of Captain Fadhil Rashid Bey, Arab
military commander of Jerusalem. He was soft-spoken in con-
trast to the braggarts I had met so far. An Iraqi, he had been
trained by Germans and, as he told me, had participated in
the pro-Nazi revolt of 1941 in Iraq, which for two desperate
months threatened to turn the entire Middle East into a Nazi
camp. 2 Moustafa gave me a flattering introduction as a cor-
respondent and a German sympathizer, so that Rashid Bey
and I got along famously from the outset. I took his photo-
graph and he was pleased. I asked him deferentially how well
he knew the Mufti.
"I am commander of Jerusalem because of the Mufti. I
knew him in Iraq/'
RUFFIANS ALL
RASHID BEY'S job was not enviable. He had no regular
army, but a vast rabble of largely unemployed, impoverished,
loot-hungry Arab hooligans, whom even the respectable Mos-
lems feared and avoided. There was no dearth of experienced
fighters. Many were veterans of the Mufti's 1929 and 1936-9
revolts. Some had spent the war years in Germany, had been
thoroughly indoctrinated, and were now excellent propagan-
dists. Others had served in the Axis-sponsored Moslem Le-
2 The story is told in Chapter XXIL
The Holy City 171
gions organized under the Mufti's guidance. There was also
the Mufti's Youth Corps Futuwa reorganized by Jamal
Bey el Husseini, the Mufti's cousin and chairman of the Arab
Higher Committee. There were, too, a strong representation
of Ikhwan el Muslimin thugs, select ruffians from Hebron,
and thousands of other shiftless, semiliterate marauders. They
were undisciplined and outlaw fighters all, inept at teamwork,
but dangerous when fighting individually or in small bands as
guerrillas, with loot in any form as the primary objective.
These were the Arab gangs that, with the aid of technically
skilled deserters from the British army, in recent months had
blown up the Palestine Post and the Jewish Agency Building,
bombed Ben Yehuda street, the principal Jewish business
thoroughfare, and laid mines. As I strolled about I could see
that they were in an extremely cocky and festive mood. They
had made this last week in March a black week for the Jews.
With foolhardy courage, the Haganah had sent a large convoy
to supply Kfar Etzion a chain of four kibbutzim perched
on a strategic hilltop commanding the road to Jerusalem from
the South. The convoy had successfully charged through a
fifteen mile gauntlet of Arab villages and numerous road-
blocks, mines, and snipers' posts.
On its way back, however, the story was different. The Jews
met Arabs under Abdul Kader el Husseini, a relative of the
Mufti, who had served him in the Iraq-Nazi revolt and was
now commander of Arab forces in the Jerusalem area. At Nebi
Daniel (site of a small Arab village named for the prophet
Daniel) huge roadblocks halted the returning convoy. A fierce
battle began. Cornered, the Haganah commander regrouped
his vehicles on three sides of a square, with a ruined wall form-
ing the fourth side. The battle raged for thirty-six hours be-
tween some two hundred Jews and more than three thousand
Arabs who had surrounded them and cut them off from all
help.
British forces were still responsible for "law and order/'
They were in Palestine to prevent precisely such battles as
172 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
this. But when the British finally intervened, it was to strike
a bargain with the Arabs. In return for the safety of the sur-
viving Jews, the Arabs were to take all the Haganah arms and
equipment. To prolong a hopeless struggle against odds of
fifteen to one would have meant the eventual destruction of
the Jewish fighting force as well as the loss of vehicles. The
Haganah commander capitulated. The English escorted his
men to Jerusalem. To the Jews it meant the loss of almost
their entire fleet of armored trucks in Jerusalem. They also
lost twelve men. The Arab toll in this "Battle of the Roads"
was 135 dead.
The next day on sale everywhere in the Holy City were
gruesome photographs of the battle: the burnt and mutilated
bodies of Haganah men, which for some perverse Arab reason,
had been stripped of clothing and photographed in the nude.
These naked shots hit "Holy" City markets afresh after every
battle, and sold rapidly. Arabs carried them in their wallets
and displayed them frequently, getting the same weird, ab-
normal "kick" that our perverts derive from nude photographs
of women.
After our first night at the home of Faris's cousin, we
moved to our permanent headquarters near by on Deir
Aboutor. This was a two-storied house that according to the
stationery I found there was once the "Todd Osborne House."
It had served as the "Mission to Mediterranean Garrisons,
S. F. Couples, Superintendent." On my third day in Jerusa-
lem I risked crossing to the Jewish side the Jews were in
control of most of the New City to reach the YMCA for a
night's rest and a hot shower such as I hadn't enjoyed since
London. There was another urgent reason: the lice had multi-
plied and the itching had become unbearable. I had no means
to delouse my clothing. I had no place to take a bath. The
only antidote was DDT obtainable only on the Jewish side-
Crossing from one side to the other was dangerous, though
the distance was only about five hundred yards. Trigger-happy
The Holy City 173
snipers shot at any figure seen crossing the lines, on the theory
that the Jews should stay on the Jewish side and Arabs on the
Arab side. I found a way that I thought minimized the risk of
being sniped at from the front as well as from the back. My
route led under barbed wire past the railway station, up a
deserted, rubble-strewn street, past several houses that looked
deserted but may not have been, through two British check-
posts, and across an open space particularly susceptible to
Arab snipers. I negotiated the turns and twists without mis-
hap. When I reached the YMCA I found it magnificent
with swimming pool, library, game rooms, restaurant, athletic
field, and beautifully landscaped grounds. After a fine Ameri-
can supper and an ecstatic hot shower I used DDT liberally.
I spent the night in the tiny but comfortable cell that char-
acterized the "Y" from Joliet, Illinois, to Japan.
The next day, when I returned to the Arab side, came
reckoning. I had never seen Moustafa so cross. "Where were
you last night?" he asked in a surly voice. I told him the truth.
"I understand you, but they don't know you here as I do.
They think I have brought a spy. I have done my best to ex-
plain that you are willing to die with us because you hate the
Jew. They trust my word, even if they don't trust you. Now
promise, Artour, you will never go to the YMCA again. If you
do, it will be the last time. I shall not be responsible for what
the fanatics do to you. ... By the way, lend me some of
your DDT/ 7
I had brought two packages. "This box is for you, Mou-
stafa."
The next morning I asked how he had slept.
"Bless the beard of the American who invented DDT.
When you meet him, tell him that I will praise his memory
forever/' Moustafa said gratefully.
Despite his warning, though I spent most of the day with
the Arabs, I continued to sleep at the YMCA, sneaking over
to the Jewish side toward dusk, when danger from snipers was
174 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
greatest, but chances of detection were least. I had no other
decent place to sleep. At the Osborne House the boys slept on
lice-ridden mats on a filthy floor, and ate a monotonous diet
of olives, onions, cheese, and dried bread. I had had enough
of native life at least for a while and once Fd tasted the
luxury of the YMCA I could not withstand the prospect of an
appetizing hot meal, a hot shower, and a breakfast of bacon,
eggs, and coffee. But to appease Moustafa and Faris, I ate
lunch with the boys, helped clean the place, and told Mou-
stafa that friends in the Armenian quarter in the Old City
insisted I sleep with them.
"After all, Moustafa/ 7 I said, "are these not my people, of
my faith? I have enjoyed your hospitality for many weeks. Let
me now enjoy the call of blood before the big fighting begins.
Who knows what Allah will have in store for me by then?"
My double life had other complications. To the half dozen
Arab credentials I carried I added a green card from Deir
Aboutor headquarters stating that I was with the Moustafa el
Wakil Batallion 3 of the Green Shirts, and that my "friend-
ship to the Arabs has been confirmed on every occasion/'
Another card was from the British Public Information Office,
press headquarters of the Palestine Mandate Government. In
addition, it was necessary to obtain permits to enter the vari-
ous zones into which Jerusalem had been divided by the Brit-
ish. Later, on May 14, when the Jews took over the Public
Information Office upon the departure of the British, I added
a Jewish press pass, and hid my formidable Arabic collection.
In order not to confuse matters, I kept each set in a differ-
ent pocket. The scheme worked well except that sometimes
in hurry or excitement I forgot which pocket contained which,
and more than once at the wrong time was on the point of
pulling forth a batch of credentials that would have promptly
settled my undercover activities in a fashion I don't care to
8 Named after a Green Shirt hero who participated in the pro-Nazi re-
volt in Iraq, and later escaped to Germany where he died during the war. The
Green Shirts now regard this Mufti aide and Nazi collaborator as a "saint/'
The Holy City 175
think about even now. I was always sure, however, of my
American passport. As I had the least use for it, I kept it in
my hip pocket
ARAB BATTLE, ARAB FUNERAL
ON APRIL 8, the morning before my birthday, I returned
from a night at the "Y," to find Osborne House deserted and
all the boys gone. A terrific battle for the past five days had
been raging for Mount Castel. This was the ruins of an an-
cient Roman fortress commanding the road over which sup-
plies from Tel Aviv would come to Jerusalem, and therefore
was of major importance to both Jews and Arabs. The Jews
had just launched a major offensive against it, and every avail-
able Arab had been rushed to its defense. Arab boasting had
not been in vain: they had bottled up the New City, and cut
it off from the rest of Palestine. The New City's plight was
desperate. With a population of nearly one hundred thousand
to feed and defend, it was woefully short of arms, ammuni-
tion, water, food, medicine, and armored transport. Its water
was pumped from a station at Latrun, in Arab territory, but
the Arabs had destroyed the machinery. Huge convoys waited
in Tel Aviv, 45 miles away, ready to pour into the beleaguered
city with food, water, and materiel if the Jews could win
back Castel. The Arabs were determined that they should not.
On this morning Abdul Kader el Husseini led his men,
flushed with their victory over the Jewish convoy at Nebi
Daniel, against the fortress of Castel; a whooping, colorful
counterattack, a mass charge of 2,500 frenzied Holy Warriors,
including the Deir Aboutor gang. When I found no one in
Osborne House, I went down to the Old City; and I was there
when suddenly everyone began to yell frantically. I thought
that a prominent Jew had been caught and was about to be
hanged in public. I dared not ask, as I was alone. Then, to my
176 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
horror, soldiers and civilians alike began to discharge their
pistols and rifles indiscriminately. Sharpshooters on the walls
took up the racket. I sought refuge in a doorway. I was con-
vinced this was no hanging party, but good news of some sort,
which the Arabs were celebrating in their own peculiar way.
It was like our Fourth of July except that live ammunition
was going off in all directions. What was the good news? I
stopped a policeman. "Castel! It is ours!" he screamed, and
fired his pistol, splitting my eardrums.
Moustafa, Fans, and the others returned to Deir Aboutor
late in the afternoon, grimy but exalted. I listened to their
tales of triumph. One would think these two alone had cap-
tured Castel. Mohammed, one of the fighters, had a wrist
watch and field glasses he did not have the day before.
"Where did you get them?"
"From the Jews."
"You told me once that Arabs buried dead Jews with their
rings and watches."
Everybody laughed. . . . Toward evening they were laugh-
ing no longer, but on the contrary were as glum as if their
mothers had died. The Castel victory had been costly. Abdul
Kader el Husseini, hero of the counterattack, and the only
man with a personal following in the Jerusalem area, had been
killed in the action. There was no one else to take his place.
The funeral would be held tomorrow morning.
I spent my birthday witnessing that extraordinary spectacle,
I wore my Mufti button showing the Mufti's turbaned
head against a background of red, black, and green the Arab
colors. Arab tempers were on edge. An angered mob could be
dangerous to strangers. I stuck close to Moustafa, and asked
him to delegate two of the boys to keep an eye on me. I
sensed the tenseness as Moustafa and a half dozen of us
walked through the Old City to the Moslem quarter, where
the dead chief's bier rested in his home. The crowd was
heavily armed, and so thick that there was hardly elbow room.
Not a single woman was visible.
The Holy City 177
We followed the mourners, walking in silence. When the
crowd turned a corner to Husseini's house, I climbed aboard
an armored car to take pictures. At that moment a volley of
rifle shots suddenly crackled into the air. I heard shouts:
"Yahood/ Yahood/" Mourning gave way to panic, as practi-
cally every Arab in the teeming mob of thousands simul-
taneously let go with pistol or rifle. The bullets hit live electric
wires, which broke and swung on the road as Arabs tried to
scramble out of their way. My position atop the car was, to
say the least, highly untenable. I remember now that a bullet
whistled past just as I jumped, crawling on all fours toward a
space between two cars. Everyone was scrambling for safety.
Within sixty seconds, the streets were completely cleared.
Arabs were flat against anything that was handy: earth, streets,
doors, walls. Some were still jumping over fences. It was all
very undignified for a people who claimed that if they chose
to spit, they could drown the Jews. Crouching between two
cars, I managed to take a few pictures. Under each car were
three Arabs, with others trying to crawl under. Of all the
bizarre scenes I saw in the Arab world, perhaps this one of
utter panic, hysteria, and fear was the most comic and sig-
nificant.
What we had all thought was a Haganah attack turned out
to be a rifle salute in honor of the dead commander. When
they began shouting this intelligence, I saw Moustafa crawling
from under the armored car, dusting himself with an air of
embarrassment. I showed him my scraped shinbone.
As the funeral cortege came around the bend I lost Mou-
stafa. The boys assigned to guard me had bravely disappeared
during the melee. I was alone. Fortunately, when I got on a
high wall to shoot pictures, I met two Armenian boys. They
accompanied me as we followed the cortege. Husseinfs coffin,
covered with a red, black, and green flag, was carried to the
square below the Dome of the Rock, where Arab chiefs spoke
their eulogies. All this took place within sight of the Wailing
Wall. The bier was then lifted by the pallbearers and the final
178 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
procession began. Passing under banners of Arab flags, and
waved on by palm leaves, the coffin was borne slowly away.
I was now before the entrance of the Dome of the Rock,
one of Islam's holiest shrines. Standing near by was a short,
plump, round-faced man with a magnificent spade-shaped
white beard and an enormous white turban, who was the
custodian, Sheikh Ismail el Ansary. I asked in Turkish if I
might enter and pay my respects to the Prophet. Fingering his
beads, he led me into the octagonal, exquisitely ornate mosque
that had been built by Byzantine artists on the model of the
Church of the Ascension. In the half-light of latticed and
stained-glass windows, I saw magnificently tinted columns
that had once graced the Temple of Jerusalem in Roman
times. Others were from Christian churches of the Byzantine
era, as attested to by signs of the Cross.
Directly under the enormous dome, enclosed within a high
fence, was a huge black slab of rock, glowing darkly as it re-
flected the subdued rays streaming through the stained glass.
It was to this rock that Mohammed was supposed to have
arrived in one day from Mecca hundreds of miles away
by flying on his winged horse, El Burak. It is said that he
prayed on this rock, then, mounting the steed, flew to heaven.
Historically the rock was actually a jagged slice of Mount
Moriah, the hill on which Abraham offered to sacrifice Isaac.
The Jews prayed on it long before the Moslem dome cov-
ered it
Solomon built his magnificent Temple here and housed in
it the Jewish holy of holies, the Ark of the Covenant. The en-
tire area of the mosque, and the spacious stone courtyard sur-
rounding it, were built on the site of the ancient Israel courts,
where Christ preached and drove away the money-changers.
Hardly a square inch here was without some direct connection
to ancient Hebraic or Christian history.
None of these Hebraic-Christian origins, however, could be
mentioned to Sheikh Ansary. He disliked Americans for their
support of the partition of Palestine, but he apparently
The Holy City 179
thought me sufficiently "un-American" to invite me to his
room after my visit to the Dome. It was a large igloo-like stone
guardhouse, next to one of the porticos. Sitting on a colorful
settee, he offered me the choice of bitter Arab coffee or sweet-
ened tea.
After I had gained his confidence, El Ansary proved unusu-
ally outspoken. "Look here" these were the only English
words he knew "whenever I pray, I pray to Allah to destroy
the Jews. I pray to Allah to punish President Truman because
he has been on the Zionist side. I used to pray against Presi-
dent Roosevelt, a very bad man. Now I pray to Allah that he
destroy Mrs. Roosevelt because she is behaving very badly
toward the Arabs."
"You sound like a Moslem Republican," I said.
"Look here, I pray against them for different reasons.
Against Balfour and his family I pray that Allah confine
them all to hell. The English are like sarratan [cancer]. May
Balfour and Roosevelt take first place in hell. Allah, Allah,
may this be done."
Propriety demanded that I say: "Insh'allah."
Despite his sixty-eight years, the man was as vigorous as an
ox. "Look here, I will fight for Palestine to the last minute of
my life," he said, with eyes blazing. "No Moslem is afraid of
death. If he dies for Palestine that is a satisfying way to die.
His parents are happy he fell in the Jehad. If we cannot win
any other way, all the sheikhs in all the mosques in all the
Arab countries over all the world will climb the minarets, and
call on every Moslem to join the Jehad against the Jew in
Palestine."
I turned the conversation to the Mufti.
"Look here," said El Ansary, "he is of the same blood as
Mohammed. He is respected for his many good deeds. I pray
for the Mufti in all my prayers to Allah." -
I thanked Sheikh el Ansary for his courtesy and, according
to decorum, wished him long life and the blessings of Allah
on him, his family, and his heirs. Bowing, I salaamed by plac-
180 CADRO TO DAMASCUS
ing my fingertips first to my heart, then to my lips, my fore-
head. He did the same in token of his respect toward me.
"I shall remember you in my prayers to Allah/' he said.
UNHOLY CITY
LATE in the afternoon I met Moustafa in Deir Aboutor. He
was glum.
"What's the matter?"
"Castel. The Jews got Castel back early this morning/'
Moustafa said.
Overnight the fortunes of war had changed. With the cap-
ture of Castel the Jews had opened the road to Tel Aviv, and
hundreds of convoys poured into Jerusalem with sorely needed
food, medical supplies, and arms. The Arabs later recaptured
Castel, but that brief respite helped Jerusalem immensely in
this period.
"What are we going to do now, Moustafa?"
"Paris and I are going back to Cairo to buy heavy guns. We
need them badly/'
I thought quickly. I would prefer to remain in Jerusalem
and wait for Moustafa and Paris to return. But the idea of
running guns from Egypt to Palestine excited and challenged
me. Where were the Arabs getting their guns? Who was sup-
plying them? How would they smuggle them into Palestine?
And what role was the Mufti in Cairo playing? I wanted
desperately to meet him. ... I spoke up:
'Til come along. Remember our pledge: wherever you go,
Hollow/'
It took several days for Paris to borrow capital to pay for the
guns he expected to buy, and to make other arrangements. In
the meantime Captain Zaki and the other Green Shirts we
had left in Beersheba had managed to hitch-hike to Deir
The Holy City 181
Aboutor and join us. Zalci was placed in charge of Osborne
House while we prepared to leave for Cairo.
But before we left Jerusalem two outrages one Jewish, the
other Arab shocked the conscience of every decent Jew,
Christian, and Moslem. The first occurred at Deir Yassin a
small Arab village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. For years the
Arabs there had lived at peace with the Jews. Then suddenly
the Arabs began to snipe and stage vicious attacks on isolated
Jewish settlements. After several warnings the Stern group
told the Arabs to evacuate their women and children because
it intended to retaliate in kind. The Arabs refused, counting
on the presence of women and children to prevent the Jews
from attacking. The Sternists, in turn, believing the families
had been evacuated, staged an all-out attack, determined to
silence those Arabs who had been massacring Jews for weeks.
When the Arabs put up stiff resistance, the Sternists called
in the Irgun, whereupon the Arab warriors fled. In the melee,
the innocent suffered: the women, the children, the aged. The
slaughter reached a toll of 150. Bodies were piled on street
corners. Others were thrown into wells. Despite the heat of
war, the massacre was as senseless as it was hideous. Every Jew
I met was horrified and ashamed. The fact that this was the
only instance of its kind in the history of Jewish-Arab rela-
tions, or that the Arab leaders of Deir Yassin had been
warned to evacuate their women and children, does not excuse
its vindictiveness.
The dark gods that guided the destinies of the Holy City
took quick revenge. On April 13 a convoy of nurses, doctors,
medical students and scholars set out for the Hebrew Uni-
versity and the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, above
Jerusalem. The British had been duly informed of the non-
military nature of the convoy, and the Jews had requested
their protection. But instead of the British, the Arabs came
hundreds of veterans of Nebi Daniel and Mount Castel. First
they set up roadblocks, then they knocked out the first in the
182 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
convoy of four armored buses. For seven hours the Arabs bat-
tered the helpless victims with grenades, Bren guns, Molotov
cocktails. They set two cars on fire, shooting down those who
crawled out. Among the seventy-seven who perished were
men eminent in Palestine science: Dr. Chaim Yasky, director
of the Hadassah Hospital; Dr. Mizurky, cancer specialist; Dr.
Benjamin Klar, philologist; Dr. Abraham Freimann, authority
on Jewish law; Doljansky and Ben-David of the Faculty of
Medicine, who had treated many Arabs.
British police watched as the slaughter went on. When it
was nearly over, they laid down a smoke screen, drove off the
Arabs, and arranged for a truce. Then they carried off the
survivors 28 out of 105!
Later, the Arabs disclosed that they had been falsely in-
formed of "large concentrations of Jewish bands gathering
near the Hospital and University." Who had informed them?
I heard the answer everywhere among the Arabs at Deir
Aboutor:
"El IngleezJ" The English!"
Whether Arab massacred Jew, or Jew massacred Arab, was
of little moment. I felt that neither the Jew nor the Moslem
was basically at fault here. They were victims of a conspiracy
beyond their scope, and at this stage, their inflamed passions
made a peaceful ending impossible. Neither Arabs nor Jews,
but pagans, had made the Holy City impure and unholy a
city whose revered memory was blasphemed most by those
making the greatest pretense to piety and democracy.
The next day I left with Moustafa and Fans for Cairo.
(CHAPTER X)
GUN-RUNNING!
"Eighteen pounds" the gun merchant said, expect-
ing to get fifteen.
"That is cheap," Paris whispered. "Buy it"
"Ten pounds? I offered.
"Sixteen and it is yours."
"Ten? I said.
"It cost me fifteen, I swear "by Allah"
"It's worth no more than ten pounds" I insisted,
and made a move to leave.
1 finally bought it for eleven pounds.
IT WAS no joy ride. The distance from Jerusalem to Cairo
was about three hundred miles, the greater part of it over
desert. Our transportation on the first leg of our journey was
a hired open truck with rickety sidings, filled with ten large
drums of gasoline and six crates of oranges, which Fans pro-
posed to sell in Beersheba to get additional money for guns.
All the drums leaked and the floor of the truck was already
drenched when I clambered on board. I didn't think gas-
soaked oranges would taste good, but it was none of my busi-
ness.
I was dressed appropriately: my Jchaffiya about my face, my
Green Shirt armband in place, my Arab credentials carefully
placed where I could get at them quickly. My job was to sit
184 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
in the baclc and watch the drums. Moustafa and Paris sat in
front with the driver, guns poised against snipers and hold-up
men. Gasoline was scarce and the cargo valuable. We were
particularly jittery as we approached the Jewish settlement
near Rachel's tomb, Kibbutz Ramat Rachel. Our truck
stopped, and Moustafa, to guard against attack from Jewish
snipers, climbed with his machine-gun into the back with me.
Then our truck made a frenzied dash, madly careening and
zigzagging from one side of the road to the other to spoil the
aim of sharpshooters. The drums slammed and bounced to-
gether with a frightful racket, causing them to leak all the
more. One of them nearly pinned me to the side and another
almost smashed my hand as I tried to keep them together. I
gave up finally and held on to the sidings, never sure whether
Fd be ripped off with them at the next turn. I could see it was
going to be an exciting ride back to Cairo.
We roared by the kibbutz in a cloud of dust. No snipers
shot at us.
"You are brave, like a soldier/' Moustafa said, as we slowed
down at a safe distance and he climbed back into the front
seat.
We stopped to pick up hitch-hikers. Later on, we picked
up more, ragged ruffians all. Now I had the added responsi-
bility of keeping Arabs from pilfering oranges. It was not an
easy task to instruct loot-mad cutthroats on the proprieties of
ownership. Suddenly I caught one of them smoking a ciga-
rette, seated atop the leaking gasoline drums. He had smoked
it more than halfway before I saw what he was doing. If I
were an Arab I'd have struck him.
I grabbed the cigarette out of his mouth and tossed it into
the road.
"Ahbal/ Ahbal/ Fool!" I yelled over and over. The moron
shrugged his shoulders.
We passed Bethlehem and neared Kibbutz Kfar Etzion
with about twenty gas-splattered hitch-hikers perched like
Gun-Running! 185
buzzards all over the truck. That it held together was a tribute
to the genius of its American maker. Five hundred yards from
Kfar Etzion we halted again: tracer bullets from the Jews
would have blown us all sky high. We waited for an armored
car to come along and act as military escort for us until we
passed the Jewish settlement. Presently one came roaring be-
hind us. We let it go ahead and followed close behind. Be-
yond the settlement the road sloped. Down the hill we now
dashed in a mad, suicidal flight at some seventy miles an hour.
I wondered which would be easier crashing or roasting to
death. To my surprise we ran this gauntlet, too, without a
shot. To my greater surprise, the truck still held together. I
thought the Jews were asleep at Kfar Etzion, but I soon
learned they were holding their fire for bigger game.
Just as we reached the bottom of the grade, we met a large
convoy led by four armed trucks bristling with King Abdul-
lah's British-trained, British-financed Arab Legionnaires. They
were followed by a dozen mammoth trucks, carrying thou-
sands of gallons of gasoline in tins. A half dozen trucks filled
with more Legion troops brought up the rear.
We met the convoy a minute after running the Jewish
gauntlet. As the armored trucks reached the hilltop we had
just left, the Jews opened with a barrage. Watching the battle
from a safe distance, I realized suddenly that our truck had
missed being caught in the line of fire, let alone risking a
head-on smashup on the narrow road, by a matter of seconds!
As the Jews began to fire, the convoy stopped, and the
armored cars began firing. With a display of excellent dis-
cipline and marksmanship, the Arab Legion scored four hits
on the Jewish stronghold. Kfar Etzion guns were silenced in
clouds of dust, smoke, and debris. The fight was over in a half
hour and the convoy resumed its journey. I saw one Arab ve-
hicle smoking. Three Arabs were reported dead. While the
fighting was going on, Moustafa and I ran over freshly plowed
fields to get a closer view. But we dared move only when we
186 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
saw a protecting rockpile or fence. By the time we arrived, the
convoy was well on its way. We hailed a small armored car to
drive us back to our truck.
As Moustafa scrambled into the car, I barely squeezed in
after him. I found myself sitting on what I presumed was
someone's leg. When I turned to beg his pardon, I found the
man dead. He was an Arab Legionnaire propped up against a
tire. At first I saw only his arm. Then I saw that he had been
shot through the left temple, and the blood had clotted over
his face and eyeball. His mouth was partly open, but I could
see no teeth. A small white bandage, thrown over his head,
had become saturated with his blood. The pallor of death had
already set in. I looked around. Exactly thirteen of us were
jammed tightly inside the sweating interior of the car. To my
right was a veiled woman. Her hands were bloody and she was
weeping.
"Was he your son?" I asked in broken Arabic.
"La, no/' she said, and indicated that she had bloodied her
hands helping him into the truck.
The Legionnaire was the first dead man Ihad ever touched.
The soldier's legs wobbled grotesquely against mine, and the
horribly mutilated face stared vacantly in the hot, cramped
confines of the armored car. We reached Fans, who was
waiting for us in our truck.
We continued south, toward the Negev, driving across
lands now waste, but which could easily bloom not by
msh'allah, or by agricultural methods pre-dating Mohammed
but by toil, by planning, by science, by water. We passed
small herds of bearded black goats tended by young boys in
rags. We came to what I thought at first was a rubble heap. It
turned out to be a native mud village. Hordes of children
swarmed across our path, followed by mangy dogs. Once again
we passed the telephone lines, stripped of copper, swinging
pathetically in the hot wind.
Gun-Running! 187
TWO ARMENIANS IN THE NEGEV
WE ARRIVED in Beersheba in the afternoon, exhausted,
dusty, and smelly. Fans, good as his promise, promptly sold
the oranges and the gasoline at a good profit and added the
money to his gun fund. The hired truck went back to Jerusa-
lem. For lunch we were again invited by the mayor for a meal
of pilav and lamb. Sitting at my right was a gray-haired man
with a worried face. His features, tempered by suffering, were
not Arabic, though he was dark-skinned and unshaven. We
had been talking in Turkish. The man ate with unusual gusto.
"He eats almost like a starving Armenian/' I said to myself.
Something in me clicked. ... I looked again at his face, es-
pecially the eyes.
"Hye yes? Are you Armenian?" I asked.
The man almost choked. He stared at me in my Jchaffiya,
my armband, my deeply tanned face, and gasped:
"Toun Hye yes? Are you Armenian?'*
I laughed. "Ayo. Dzo hoss inch guness gor? Yes. What are
you doing here?"
"Yev toun inch guness gor ass anabadin metch? And what
are you doing in this desert?"
His name was Iskender Demirjian and he was a miller. For
fourteen years he had ground grain for Bedouins. A refugee
from the Turkish massacres, he had lived in Jerusalem, and
saved his money. Seeing that Arab women still ground their
wheat by methods older than Mohammed, the enterprising
Armenian had built a mill, installed the machinery, and was
earning a good living. His mill was out in the parched desert,
at a Bedouin crossroads. Now he was in town to buy gasoline
and was going back in the afternoon.
"Moustafa, meet another good Arab, an Armenian. He will
give us a ride."
"Ahh, an Armenian bravest of brave he-men, boldest of
188 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
the bold, generous to a friend, merciless to a foe. They shall
always have a place of honor at my table."
If you gave Moustafa something anything to eat, to drink,
to wear, he sang your praises like a poet. I would treat him to
dinner just to hear him perorate on my people. Most Arabs
are poetic. The language has nuances of grace and beauty, and
powers of expression beside which English is stiff, stilted,
bony, and barren.
The Armenian did not have his own truck. Someone was
driving him back with three drums of gasoline the Armenian
had bought and sacks of grain for milling. We hopped on,
preferring to sit tete-a-tte on the grain sacks, instead of up
front.
The Negev stretched around us like an undulating desert
sea. The Armenian began to talk, not of chit-chat, or about
wanting to come to America, but of what he had long kept
pent up.
"What a strange and stubborn people we are/' he began.
"How many thousands of years old we are I do not know. 1
Genesis speaks of us. We had a civilization and an alphabet
while England was a forest. Our kingdom reached from Ararat
to the Black Sea and down to the Mediterranean. A thousand
years now we have been a people governed by Tartars, Mon-
gols, Seljuks, Arabs, Persians, Turks, Russians. Before them it
was the Greeks and Romans who tried to assimilate us. They"
the Armenian chuckled at this "always choked when they
tried it. We bent, yes, but inside remained like steel. We as-
similated some of the best traits of the conquering visitors,
which made us hardy and impossible to destroy. The Turk
made the most ambitious attempt to exterminate us mas-
sacring 1,300,000. But look how we've bred like jack-rabbits.
lf rhe Armenians are regarded by anthropologists as a Western people.
The language, non-Semitic, belongs to the Indo-European family. Armenians
originally emigrated from the Alpine regions of southern Europe and settled
in the plateaus of Asia Minor, reaching to the Caucasus areas. Mainly because
of their Christianity, they kept in constant touch with, and were continually
nourished by, Western thought and culture.
Gun-Running! 189
Today there are 3,250,000 of us indestructible as God's Law.
My friend, if anybody survives atomic warfare it will be the
Armenian/'
We burst out in laughter.
"They speak of us as an Eastern people, but our culture is
a hybrid of West and the residue of civilizations East and
West that crisscrossed our country. Our religion and lan-
guage are Western. Our feelings for democracy are Western.
Others boast of their martyrs: a thousand and one publicized
saints, with more manufactured every year. How about the
tens of thousands of Armenians who chose death instead of
conversion to Islam? They perished to keep Christ's holy
flame burning. These are the real martyrs the unsung saints,
known but to God, unknown to your Western journals. Chris-
tianity with us has been no luxury. It was as hard to cling to as
life itself, but as long as we kept Him, He kept us."
The words seemed to pour out of the Armenian.
"See those mounds, those hills?" He pointed with a
gnarled hand. "If they could speak they would call out their
names: Boghos, Avedis, Antranik, Hagop, Stepan, Sumpad!
Armenians are buried everywhere on this desert around us.
They fought with the Allies with the English and the
French in World War I to help liberate the Arabs from the
Turks. Where did it get us, my friend? Here, there, under
those mounds death. We marched into Jerusalem with Al-
lenby. 2 The dead piled on the dead. We have fertilized the
ground for the ambitions of this big power or that You re-
member, do you not, how the English and the French de-
serted us in Turkey in 1921 and 1922, and looked the other
2 Marshal AHenby's assault on Beersheba in October 1917 enabled him
to liberate the rest of Palestine from the Turks and capture Jerusalem two
months later. About 75,000 members of the Armenian Legion of Volunteers
died on the Arab and European fronts, fighting with the Allies.
A former United States consul-general, George Horton, wrote of these
and other experiences in The Blight of Asia, An Account of the Systematic
Extermination of Christian Populations by Mohammedans and of the Culpabil-
190 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
way while Kemal with French and British anus massacred
those Armenians who had survived six years of massacre. Who
came from the West to count the Greeks, Armenians, and
other Christians massacred by Kemal? Where was their grati-
tude? Except for help from America, where were the sweet
words of the other Powers? Ah, they call to you only when
they can make use of you/'
We arrived at a cluster of buildings in the parched dust-
bowL
"This is my home," the Armenian said. "Come, meet my
family."
He had one daughter and four sons, one of whom had mar-
ried an Arab girl. All five, together with the mother and fa-
ther, had ''Armenian eyes/' One can recognize them easily. It
isn't that they're large, or oval, or sad. It isn't a physical
quality that differentiates them. Look in the eyes of a man
who has suffered yet never lost faith in his Creator, in man,
or in himself; one who has lived among the dying, laughed
among the weeping, sung among the songless, a refugee for a
thousand years and who today looks on life's adventure hun-
grily and excitedly, and you will have found "Armenian eyes/'
We found the Demirjians living like Arabs, except that
their home was far cleaner. The entire family save the son
who had married a Bedouin slept in one large room, at one
end of which was a bed for the elder Demirjians. The "chil-
dren," all of them now grown to full manhood and woman-
hood, slept on rush mats next to their parents' bed. They
brought us coffee, and cool water from the well. They urged us
to stay for supper and spend the night with them, as was the
custom of the desert. Moustafa gave a peroration on the heroic
qualities of the Armenian male, but he was too much of an
Arab to include the Armenian woman, whose role has often
been equally heroic in the preservation of the race. A truck
loaded with flour was going toward Cairo, so Moustafa, Faris,
and I decided to get on it
"YalW
Gun-Running! 191
The road was a thin, pale, yellow ribbon snaking through
the wilderness of sand, scrub, and stone. For miles before and
behind there was nothing but parched earth and wadies. I was
hatless, bouncing in the truck, up and down, and from side to
side. How scorchingly the sun beat down! It seared my tongue
into a dull, dead weight rolling in my mouth. It burned my
eyes with the flame of a torch. It cracked open my lips as the
earth around me was cracked open. This was no longer the
Negev of Palestine. We had left Palestine and were in Egypt.
The frontier was behind us somewhere on the steaming sands.
This was the Sinai wilderness through which the ancient Jews
wandered for forty years!
ABDOU HABI MAY HIS TRIBE DECREASE!
AT NINE P.M. we reached the Suez Canal and the Ismailia
Customs Office. Now we ran into a difficulty of which, this
time, I was the direct cause. I had brought $380 in cash with
me. Despite Moustafa's warning not to state the full amount
I declared it all. Paris did not divulge the hundreds of pounds
he had brought to buy guns. I had no cause to lie. Besides, if
the official hated Americans, Armenians, or journalists, he
might take a notion to search me and confiscate any sum
above the declared amount. I told the truth $380 in cash.
"May I see the money?" the official asked. I produced the
money, expecting him to count it. Instead, he laid it aside
tenderly, and turned to other matters. After ten minutes of
waiting I said: "Count my money, please, and give me a re-
ceipt/'
"Shuweiya. Shuweiya. Take it easy. Take it easy/ 7
He opened the right-hand drawer of his desk, and moved to
put the money in.
"Please count the money, now, in my presence/' I insisted.
Abdou Habi never will I forget the name, may his tribe
192 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
decrease put the greenbacks on the desk. He claimed he
didn't know what to do. He had never seen so many dollars
before. He would wait till morning, and ask his chief, in the
meanwhile keeping possession of the uncounted dollars. We
were anxious to get to Cairo that night and were in no mood
for delay.
"Telephone your chief and ask him what to do. That's sim-
ple enough."
Abdou Habi said he did not wish to disturb His Excellency
at this hour.
There were six of us in the wooden shack that was the
customs office five Arabs, one American. The dollars, still
uncounted, were on the desk with a paperweight over them.
Abdou left his desk. I walked over to Moustafa, standing
some feet away, to ask his advice, when suddenly the lights
went out, plunging the shack into darkness.
"The money! The money!" I yelled, and hurled myself at
the desk.
Long experience in photographic darkrooms has given me a
sense of direction in the dark; almost instantly I located the
pile of dollars and placed my hand firmly over it. A split sec-
ond later I felt a pair of moist fat hands crawling over mine.
At that instant someone lit a match. A nose's distance from
my face was the face of Abdou Habi.
No doubt about it now. Everyone sensed Habi's game. A
clamor arose to count the money immediately. I demanded
the phone to call the American ambassador. Moustafa began
to shout the names of Egypt's cabinet ministers and army gen-
erals he claimed to know. Habi was thoroughly intimidated.
He suddenly decided that we might perhaps risk disturbing
His Excellency. Habi wanted to carry the money, but I re-
fused to give it up until he agreed to count it then and there.
After that I permitted him to pocket the bills, and asked
Moustafa to sit next to him and let his pistol press against the
would-be thief. The customs chief was cordial, apologized for
Gun-Running! 193
the "misunderstanding/' carefully counted my money, and
gave me a certification that I had brought in $380.
We arrived in Cairo shortly after midnight, and went to the
Gloria, a native hotel where the three of us shared a large
room. Never was a bed more welcome. Scorched, blistered,
and wracked by the day's events, I sank into bed, my money
belt around my waist. Inside it also were my Madonna, St.
Christopher's Medal, and mezuzah, inseparably together.
GUN-BUYING
THE next morning Moustafa, Paris and I called on a haber-
dashery dealer. The haberdasher drove us in a French car five
miles out, across a railroad crossing, and slowed down when
we came to a long, high mud fence surrounding a spacious
house. There was a guardhouse at the corner, then another
entrance, through which we drove into a large garden. The
trio went in. I remained outside talking in Turkish to one of
the men. "Where do you get the guns and ammunition?"
I asked.
"Why do you ask such questions?"
"Our boys would like to get them as cheaply as possible by
going to the source. The need in Palestine is desperate, and
money is hard to get"
The man wasn't impressed. "I do not know you," he said,
and kept watching me.
Moustafa and the others came down the stairs, toting two
heavy, low-slung guns. I must confess to more than ordinary
stupidity on such matters. Moustafa said they were anti-tank
guns. The smaller of the two was priced at $250, the larger at
$400. Both were rusty and struck me as terribly overpriced.
Both were "asking" prices, which in the Orient seldom have
any relation to the actual sales price. We all went into a side
194 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
door to stare at stack after stack of packed hand-grenades and
mortar shells.
Moustafa asked if the ammunition was still alive.
"Guaranti. Guaranti," the salesman assured him.
That afternoon Moustafa and Paris went gun-shopping
again but did not take me along. Apparently I had shown
undue curiosity. I was itching to learn the major gun-sources
and other data. Laboriously piecing together tidbits, I ascer-
tained that Cairo was bristling with undercover arms and am-
munition. Some of the material had been dug out of the El
Alamein sands and was German. Considerable quantities had
been stolen from British camps or sold by British soldiers to
Arabs. Franco's arms salesmen were active. Italian, Swiss, Bel-
gian, and Czechoslovakian agents were also in the market.
Nothing American was for sale except some rifles and a few
revolvers. Rifles sold from $65 to $100, depending on the
condition and type. Revolvers brought from $25 to $40. Bren
and Vickers machine-guns ranged from $200 to $350, "asking"
prices.
A few days later Moustafa said: "I saw Faris pay three hun-
dred dollars for guns today/'
I did not press him and feigned no interest. Moustafa was
probably telling the truth but I did not want to arouse any
more suspicion than I had so far. Moustafa and Faris made
matters no easier for me when they repeatedly told me that
they had been seeing the Mufti, whom I was so eager to meet.
The Mufti was everywhere, behind nearly every major Arab
action, yet he never appeared publicly and few knew his head-
quarters. He remained mysterious, inscrutable, invisible as
ever.
I became particularly alarmed at reports reaching me
through Green Shirt scouts that the Ikhwan had warned
Jerusalem Arabs to do away with me quietly: I was not to be
trusted. The plan was to persuade me to accompany a volun-
teer gang on one of their numerofis raids. I was to be killed
either "accidentally" or by "J ew isli bullets." I didn't know
Gun-Running! 195
whether Labib Bey (a mutual dislike had developed between
us) had given the order or whether it came from Sheikh
Hassan el Banna himself. It might well come from either if
they checked with their friends in the United States. At any
rate, I kept to our room during most of my stay in Cairo,
avoiding everyone I had formerly seen except Ahmed Hussein
and the Green Shirts. I could not help asking Hussein, casu-
ally: "Do you hear anything from Katibah or Richardson
these days?" He said he had received no word from them. I
thought he was telling the truth but I was not sure. I could
not get rid of the added suspicion that it was the Green Shirts
who had warned the Jerusalem Arabs against me, and that to
throw me off the scent they accused the Ikhwan.
Cairo had changed for the worse in the two weeks I had
been away. The drums of war were no longer muffled. The
city was in a particularly ugly mood. It had just gone through
a disastrous police strike that had been suppressed by violent
army action. Hardly had the city recovered when 1,300 male
nurses of Cairo's two leading hospitals had struck, causing the
death of many patients. The government had withheld the
facts by announcing that the publication of details would be
"considered a serious crime." I sensed the mood of city-wide
terror, especially on Friday afternoons when the faithful were
exhorted from the mosques by fanatic sheikhs of El Azhar.
I missed the experience of going around with Moustafa and
Faris on their gun-hunting missions, but I learned to know
Fans better and to distrust him. I felt intuitively that he was
being underhanded. I was convinced that he was trying to set
Moustafa against me. I had to put an end to this.
Lunching alone with Moustafa one day, I said: "I'd like you
to buy me a gun for my personal use against the Jews."
Moustafa looked surprised, then broke into a smile. "I keep
telling Faris you are on Allah's side, but he won't believe me.
This will convince him."
"A rifle is too bulky, a pistol too weak. Get me a Sten in good
condition/'
196 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
I talked it over with Paris that night. Moustafa had en-
trusted him with six hundred dollars, borrowing from his rela-
tives by pledging them his share of his father's estate. "Give
me 20," Paris said. "I will buy the gun and have it delivered
to Jerusalem/'
"A gun is like a suit of clothes/' I said. "I must see it and
like it"
The next morning he took me in a taxi to a native quarter,
entered a house and walked through it to a shed in the back-
yard. Here were all kinds of weapons: I inspected them, but
professed not to like their condition. We took a taxi to a car-
penter shop. In the rear were half a dozen Sten guns. I chose
one.
"Eighteen pounds/' the gun merchant said, expecting to
get fifteen.
"That is cheap/' Paris whispered. "Buy it." He expected a
commission.
"Ten pounds," I offered.
"Sixteen and it is yours/'
"Ten," I said.
"It cost me fifteen, I swear by Allah."
"It's worth no more than ten pounds," I insisted, and made
a move to leave.
I finally bought it for eleven pounds.
AT THE MUFTI'S HIDEOUT
"I'LL store this with our other guns/' Paris said as soon as we
left the shop.
"I must come with you and store it personally," I insisted.
Paris had brought along a Sten and a revolver. We all got
in a taxi, and laid the armaments on the floor. "Yallah/"
We drove to the outskirts of Cairo. The taxi stopped in
front of a secluded, run-down house buried behind a fence
Gun-Running! 197
and almost hidden by vines and shrubbery. A lone man sat on
the porch. As we opened the iron gate he sprang to his feet.
Recognizing Moustafa and Paris he put down his gun and
welcomed us. We were not allowed to go inside. Instead, two
men came out, inspected our guns and said they needed minor
repairs to which they would attend.
As soon as the repairs were done they'd be sent to El Arish
(just this side of the Palestine border, and the assembly point
for government troops) and there picked up by the owners.
We got receipts for the guns, then we got into a taxi again,
and drove on.
"That house is a depot for guns and ammunition. It's a very
secret place/ 7
"Whose place is it, Moustafa?"
"The Mufti's!"
Fans turned to me, after a moment, and said: "We have a
surprise for you."
I completely distrusted the man. "What is it?"
"You will learn very soon."
We had been riding for about five minutes through typical
native quarters, when I noticed suddenly that we were driving
down a dirt road ending with a roadblock of large gasoline-
drums filled with cement. Around them, at the entrances to
several spacious houses, were armed guards and plainclothes-
men. It was a military headquarters of some kind. The taxi
stopped short of the roadblock, and we got out.
Moustafa leaned over toward me. "Don't speak English/'
he whispered.
We dismissed the driver, and walked into a yard, then onto
a porch.
"Where are we, Moustafo?"
"At the Mufti's headquarters. We are going to try to have
him see you."
I crossed my fingers, and waited. The two went inside and
soon emerged with a dark-haired, sharp-featured young man
who spoke excellent English.
198 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
"Why do you wish to see His Eminence?" he asked.
"I have admired him for ten years. To travel to Egypt with-
out seeing our Grand Mufti would be like coming to Cairo
and not visiting the Pyramids/'
"All the American journalists want to see him. He has re-
fused them all."
"Don't confuse me with them. They all work for the Jewish
press/ 7
"I will see. Wait here. But I warn you, don't walk around.
The guards don't know you."
Ten minutes later the young man returned to the porch
and escorted me past a long driveway. The entrance was clut-
tered with police and detectives. The driveway led into a
house set well back from the road the Mufti's headquarters
at 12 Kemal street in the Hilmia Zeitoun section outside
Cairo. My guide led me to the adjoining building, where he
introduced me to Jacob Khoury, one of the Mufti's many
secretaries. I was asked to wait downstairs.
After an hour, Moustafa and Paris joined me. Khoury told
us to call tomorrow. We came again, and once again. Each
time Moustafa and Paris would see the Mufti while I waited,
fuming. I did not meet the Mufti in Cairo. I had to postpone
that experience until later.
GUNS FOR ALLAH AND FOR PROFIT
IN THE taxi Paris asked me for a loan of fifty dollars. Was
this to be the price demanded for the arrangement to meet
the Mufti? And if I refused would Paris blackmail me? My
dislike for him grew hourly.
"Why do you want fifty dollars?" I asked.
"To buy more guns at bargain prices. I will pay you back in
Jerusalem."
Gun-Running! 199
I could see now that I should not have declared my $380.
Faris knew I couldn't have spent it all in the ten days we had
been in Cairo. He was beginning to shake me down.
"I have no money on me/ 7 I said. 'Til let you know to-
night."
"Why does he want the money?" I asked Moustafa, later.
"For guns," he said. "I have given him much money of my
own. He has promised to pay it back when we sell the guns in
Jerusalem."
"I'll give him the money only because you have trusted
Faris."
That night I turned over to Faris the equivalent of fifty
dollars in Egyptian funds.
He put his arm around my shoulder. "Look, Artour, I'll buy
you a Bren gun that you can sell in Jerusalem for three times
the price. Guns are cheap here. They are very expensive in
Jerusalem." He winked.
"Is that what you're planning to do with the guns you've
bought?" I asked.
"Of course. I expect to sell every gun at double and triple
the price."
"Then you're buying guns as a business, and not ... for
other reasons?"
"Well, other reasons, too, but there's good profit in buying
guns cheap here and selling them dear in Jerusalem. Every-
body wants guns there."
Paris' gun racket caused me to look on him with renewed
distrust. I knew now he'd never repay the fifty dollars. I didn't
mind. It was the cheapest, and the only way to buy my se-
curity. I was equally convinced I'd never see the Sten gun I
had bought "for my personal use." I had never intended to
use it. To begin with I didn't know how, and had no desire to
learn. I had bought it to reinstate myself with Faris and Mou-
stafa. I was convinced that Faris would find a way to cheat
Moustafa of the money he had loaned him. I didn't disclose
200 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
my suspicions, because if the two got to quarreling, they
would split company, and I needed the services of both to
return safely to Jerusalem.
We were due to leave in a few days. On Palm Sunday I
went to the Armenian Church in Cairo. I felt the need for
meditation. In our Church there are no one-hour-on-the-hour
Masses, nor 11.00 to 12.15 services. Our chants are sung like
arias, and take twice as long. It takes five minutes for the con-
gregation to sing the Lord's Prayer. The Armenian church-
goer is no clockwatcher. Every Sunday service is in fact a
religious marathon, a colorful, devout, emotionally inspiring
pageant that begins before nine and lasts uninterruptedly
until about one p.m., often longer if the priest is young and
has not fasted, or if a bishop visits the church. In the United
States, services have been abridged to last three hours.
To conform with the elaborate ceremonies, no tiny lapel-
button palm could satisfy the Armenian. Nothing but man-
sized palm leaves, from two to four feet long, are distributed
on Palm Sunday. I picked one of these, and waved it on my
way "liome" to the Gloria. I determined I would hold on to
it as long as possible as a symbol of peace and good will, lest
I myself succumb to the bloodsoaked, hate-wracked environ-
ment in which I found myself. It lay on the bureau in my
hotel room until we got ready to leave Cairo. Then I put it in
my suitcase. I carried the shriveled palm branch wherever I
went, all through the Arab-Israel war, all over the Middle
East a frustrated missionary in quest of peace in the war-
torn postwar world a forlorn hope! I would look at it on the
bureau, where I placed it in every hotel room in which I
stayed, and say: "I wonder if your day will ever come/'
I have the palm leaf home now.
Early one afternoon Moustafa rushed in. "YaZlah/"
I had been all but packed for days, restive with the long
delay. It was getting unbearably hot and sticky, and the dust
of the incredibly filthy Cairo streets stuck to my face, got into
Gun-Running! 201
my eyelids, and made me itch frightfully every time I went
outside the hotel. The beggars, bootblacks, dragomen, and
countless other parasites were becoming more and more dan-
gerous. Unless one was with an Arab or gave baksheesh, all the
culprit had to do was yell Yahoodi and point his finger at the
visitor, who would promptly be insulted, stoned, knifed, or
mobbed. I was also living under the constant fear of exposure
as John Roy Carlson, a name associated with attacks upon the
kind of bigotry that in Cairo, was accepted as the acme of
patriotism. It was with considerable relief that I strapped my
suitcase.
"Are we going by automobile?" That had been our plan.
"No!" Paris answered, "we're taking the train."
It was night when we arrived at El Qantara, on the Suez
Canal, and waited for a train to take us to the Palestine border.
Scores of volunteer fighters were waiting at the customs, some
with irregular papers, others with none at all. Moustafa helped
many of them. Among these were a couple of a sort all too
common in Arab countries. They were dressed in khaki and
carried knapsacks. What seemed to be the "he" of the two
was a tall, gangling, nervous English-speaking youth wearing
glasses, named Sammy, a Green Shirt member. Sammy's com-
panion, in whose little finger he had entwined his own, was a
soft-faced, blue-eyed, slim-waisted Arab from Alexandria, with
a perpetual smile. His name was Ismail. When we boarded
the train, the two sat close together in the compartment.
Every time someone lit a match I saw them either holding
hands, or Sammy with his arm around Ismail in the Arab ver-
sion of necking.
In this fashion and with this company we arrived at the
Palestine border, beyond which no trains ran. By good for-
tune, a truck carrying crates of contrabrand machinery was
leaving for Gaza the first major town on the other side of
the Palestine border. Moustafa spoke to the driver. The driver
nodded to us. We leaped in, Holy Warriors once more bound
for high adventure and Allah's glory!
(CHAPTER XI)
RETURN TO JERUSALEM
*. . . the most stupid, the most cowardly, the most
inefficient soldiers I have ever seen. The Germans
and I gave the Arabs many good ideas to destroy
the Jewish villages. They are afraid of anything
new. They say it will cost them too much money,
They are waiting for Allah to help them!"
Nazar Chalawitch
Holy Warrior from Yugoslavia
OUR truck, with a dozen assorted Arabs on board, raced to-
ward Gaza.
"Duck your heads You'll be shot."
"I'm not afraid of the Jews, Moustafa."
"Don't be crazy. They have already put a bullet in my foot!"
, I ducked, joining the terror-stricken Holy Warriors who
cowered between the crates of merchandise like corraled
sheep. I raised my head for a good look at the terror. A mile
off the road were the ruins of a kibbutz, with only two build-
ings left partially standing. Desert surrounded the wreckage.
The settlement showed as much life as a neglected cemetery.
Actually, this was heroic Kibbutz Kfar Darom, one of the
southernmost of the Jewish settlements. A shipwreck in the
desert sea, it served as an invaluable observation post for
troops and supply movements, and sprang to life only when
attacked.
Return to Jerusalem 203
"The Egyptian army will soon massacre those Jews/' Mou-
stafa threatened. 1
Past the last roadblock and inspection post, we climbed a
dusty road that suddenly reared itself over the flatness. We
roared down the main street in a terrific cloud of dust, ripping
through a maze of donkeys, carts, pastry vendors, bearded
Bedouins, and armed Arabs. At the marketplace we stopped
with screaming brakes. Alighting, we went to a coffee house
perched above the teeming street and shaded from the blister-
ing sun by dried branches. It was a restful nook. Here one
could get all the news, establish contacts, and transact his
business while drinking hot tea, and smoking the narghileh,
without moving once beyond range of a backgammon board.
"The drinks are on me," I said.
We ordered tall glasses of dark hot tea, heavy with sugar
and flavored with fresh mint. Fans and Moustafa looked
around to see whom they knew. Additional chairs and more
tables were brought over. Sammy and his beloved Ismail con-
tinued their mutual adoration, oblivious to everyone else.
I was absorbed by historic Gaza, now a city of dust and
donkeys. Without these faithful little animals traffic would
have been paralyzed. All day long they trudged at an unvary-
ing pace, head always drooping -docile,"*? Mir : lggged fellaheen,
carrying everything from gasoline tins to pot-bellied, satin-
skirted Arabs three times their weight. Centuries ago thou-
sands of Greeks living here had been forcibly converted to
Islam, so that a large proportion of its population was origi-
nally Christian. A few Armenian families remained from the
large numbers once here. Gaza was an all-Arab community
now, Moslem in spirit and appearance. Streets were devoid of
1 It never did. Before the Mandate Kfar Darom was attacked repeatedly
by volunteer bands. Later it was pulverized by Egyptian regulars, who at one
time broke into the settlement perimeter and were driven out only after a
bitter building-to-building battle. On the night of July 8, 1948, Kfar Darom
was booby-trapped and evacuated quietly. A handful of defenders slipped
through the Egyptian lines at night, taking along their wounded, and reached
Tel Aviv safely.
204 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
women; the few who walked were old, veiled, heavily garbed
in gloomy black clothing. Male couples promenaded con-
stantly. I photographed them: the result showed one couple
with their fingers entwined; another husky couple were walk-
ing arm in arm.
From where I was sitting I could make out three distinct
markets in this ancient city. To my right were the pushcarts,
sidewalk bazaars, and shops with baskets and sacks sprawled
on the street. Directly in front was a large square the gaso-
line and taxi mart. On my left, at the foot of a high wall
shaded by overhanging willows, was a munitions market. Re-
volvers, grenades, brass knuckles, daggers, and stacks of ammu-
nition were arrayed on mats on the sidewalk. Arabs bargained
excitedly and swore their poverty, but pulled out fat rolls of
Palestinian currency when the deal was closed. Ragged children
darted in and out of the stalls. A truckload of refugees arrived,
piled out, and dispersed, carrying their pitiful bundles on their
backs and on hired donkeys.
Only one sight gladdened me. Gaza had a sweet , tooth.
Huge round trays of Oriental desserts were paraded on push-
carts, the peddler weighing the precious pastry on his scales
sometimes adding the weight of his fingers while urchins
sneaked up from behind, scooped the pan with cupped hand
and skipped away.
"I'm getting hungry, Moustafa."
"Yallah. We are all hungry."
THE UNWELCOME VISITOR
WE FOUND a nameless little restaurant opposite the Grand
Gaza Hotel which had a frontage of only ten feet but was
sixty feet deep with a ceiling at least twenty feet high. We took
a table in the rear where it was as cool as a wine cellar. A little
gray donkey with fuzzy ears and short tail, on its back a gunny
Return to Jerusalem 205
sack loaded with gasoline tins, followed us into the restau-
rant and decided to stand vigil at our table. The proprietor
was not amused. He came roaring out of the kitchen with a
soup ladle. A waiter rushed up with pot covers and began to
beat them like cymbals in the animal's ear, while the ladle
hammered a drumbeat on its piously bent head. A second
waiter began cursing and tugging at the motionless beast, but
couldn't budge it. It just blinked its eyes and withstood the
combined assault with astonishing aplomb.
"He must be very hungry/' Moustafa observed.
"He'd make a good soldier/* I said. "Look how calm he is
under fire/'
Just then the donkey's owner rushed in. He was an elderly
Bedouin with a straggly beard and was shaking his whip ex-
citedly. I suppose he shouted the equivalent of "How dare
you steal my donkey, you cur!" because the words were no
sooner out of his mouth than the proprietor rushed on him
with the ladle, followed by the first waiter who brandished
the pot covers like shields before him and pounced on the old
Arab. With a magnificent sense of timing the donkey halted
the proceedings by unceremoniously arching its tail and drop-
ping its manure on the spot. While the proprietor and his
waiters looked on speechlessly, the donkey deftly turned
around and made a quick exit, followed by its master, who
leaped on its back as soon as they reached the sidewalk. Off
they trotted in a dust cloud.
"Ma'alesh. Let's eat."
The waiter with the pot covers returned with pan and
broom, and cleaned up, cursing loudly. I went into the
kitchen and ordered by pointing to pots and pans on the stove
containing what I thought I would like. I ordered a plate of
rice with lamb and tomato sauce; another of chickpeas with
lamb, seasoned with paprika. I topped this with yoghourt and
drafts of water.
The sight of two soldiers in khaki passing by outside made
me jump.
206 CAJRO TO DAMASCUS
"Moustafa, there go the Followers of Truth!"
He pounced after the pair. I followed. Paris and the lovers,
who knew nothing of our vendetta against Sheikh Azaayim's
men, stayed behind. We were almost upon the two before
they wheeled around. I was ready for anything, but nothing
happened. We learned that the Followers had finally crossed
the Suez, and were now living at the government barracks at
Gaza. They had already participated in an attack against
Kibbutz Kfar Darom.
"Did they lose any men?" I asked.
"Yes," Moustafa answered. "They lost twenty-three, and
thirty-seven were wounded. They are glad Sheikh Azaayim
did not lead them because he, too, might have been dead
now/'
"But weren't they all supposed to be immune to Jewish
bullets?"
At this moment a tall, well-built Sudanese in a rumpled
uniform and gun slung across his back approached the two
Followers. They greeted him affectionately as a brother Mos-
lem who had fought with them at Kfar Darom and escaped
unhurt.
"He did not die because of the paper he carries," Moustafa
interpreted.
"What paper?"
The Sudanese opened his shirt and produced a wrinkled
parchment suspended by a string around his neck. It was
about twelve by eighteen inches, covered with Arabic script
in red ink. Moustafa read some of it.
"The imam [priest] in his village wrote it," he explained.
"It says that the owner of this holy scroll is a true Moslem
who is engaged in fighting the Jehad. He is therefore immune
to all manner of lead and steel."
"Does he believe that?" I asked.
"Yes. Lead and steel will not touch his skin. He believes
Allah will lead him away from danger and he will come back
alive to his home and family."
Return to Jerusalem 207
A group of young toughs armed to the teeth approached
us. Moustafa let out a whoop of joy. As they came nearer I
saw that one wore the uniform of the Arab Legion, three were
Followers of Truth, two had the Green Shirt insignia. They
were led by a sheikh in a white turban, who was wrapped
heavily in a flowing gray robe that came to his ankles; wound
around his neck, as if it were arctic weather, was a heavy
woolen scarf. From his left shoulder hung a sub-machine-gun.
I knew I had seen him before. Only when he stretched out his
hand in greeting did I recognize him as the St. Patrick's Day
spellbinder I had heard in Cairo, who had swayed like a cobra
while he mesmerized the Green Shirts. He had grown a full
beard, which, with his deep-set eyes and vitriolic face, made
him look even more Mephistophelian in daylight than at
night.
It was like old home week in Gaza as other comrades joined
the crowd. Some twenty of us trouped toward the town square,
the midan. Once there, the boys decided to spend the after-
noon at the beach. I told Moustafa Fd join them later. Our
life was so unpredictable from hour to hour that I wanted to
see Samson's Tomb before leaving for Jerusalem.
I found it a few dusty blocks away from the main street.
Here, on a hillock, was an igloo-shaped structure about ten
feet high, with scrub weeds growing over it. It was surrounded
by filth and dried human offal. I ducked my head into an
opening in the side of the tomb, but recoiled at the unbear-
able stench. It was hard to believe that according to tradition
a majestic temple of the Philistines once stood on this stink-
ing stone heap, and that the blinded Samson in a last mighty
effort of bitterness and humiliation pulled it crashing down
upon his head, "so the dead which he slew at his death were
more than they which he slew in his life."
208 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
BEACH PARTY, ARAB FASHION
I INQUIRED my way to the beach to find Moustafa and the
others. The Mediterranean shore here was dotted with rotting
hulks and small fishing vessels, and everywhere were huddled
male groups. It was one of the strangest beach parties I ever
saw. It was strictly stag, with not a single woman in sight,
and every man in flowing gallabiya, bournous, or combination
native and European garb. They were playing backgammon,
drinking hot tea, coffee, araJ: (a Middle Eastern form of
brandy), and smoking the nargileh. To the left was a white-
washed shanty the coffee house. Most of the Arabs reclined
in the shade provided by blankets hung from poles driven in
the sand; some sat on short, squat bulrush chairs.
Guarding the beach were Arab Legion soldiers, wearing
the red and white dotted Jchaffiya instead of the customary
white. An English army truck was pulled up on the sand: in it
were more Legion soldiers at a time when the presence of
the Legion in Palestine was hotly denied by official British
spokesmen, as I was to learn later.
I located our party, including Faris and Sammy and Ismail,
but Moustafa was nowhere around. Faris was chatting with
four companions, and as I watched them I realized that they
were homosexuals. The most warlike among them judging
by his dress and armaments was a rotund, pasty-faced, slov-
enly man in his late twenties who spoke excellent English.
"Where did you learn English?" I asked.
"From the English soldiers. They have a big camp at Rafa."
"How do you like the English?"
"Very much, indeed. Some of them are exceptionally
friendly and nice. I wish they weren't planning to leave."
He was the first Arab I had met who had a kind word for
the British.
Sammy and his lover couldn't seem to have enough of each
Return to Jerusalem 209
other. They were promenading arm in arm on the beach, or
with arms around each other's waists, giggling and carrying
on like teen-age sweethearts. In this they were by no means
alone. The beach was filled with amorous though less demon-
strative men, both young and old, the young often with the
old, sitting close together, or back to back, or stretched out
full length on the sand.
"Take my picture/ 7 the English-speaking Arab asked.
"Make me look like a soldier/' He whipped out his pistol and,
aiming it toward Tel Aviv, assumed a fierce look.
"Hold that pose," I said. "You look like Allah's messenger."
This gave me an opening for photographing everyone on
the beach mementos of an all-male beach party. After I had
taken a dozen photographs, one of the group introduced him-
self to me as a member of the Gaza City Council. We chatted
for a few moments and I asked:
"How does the war look?"
"See that water?" He pointed with his narghileh. "One
month from now it will be black as far as the horizon with the
nude bodies of floating Jews."
"Insh'aflah, Insh'allah."
Just then Moustafa emerged from a clump of bushes to
the left from a dark-shaded nook into which I had noticed
Sammy and Ismail disappear. The two did not reappear until
almost an hour later, arm in arm. The mystery deepened when
two more members of the party vanished in the same direc-
tion and didn't return. As the afternoon wore on, one by
one the trucks and cars, the lovers old and young, left the
beach. "Let's go look for them," Moustafa said. We all rose.
I deliberately fell in with the effeminate Arab whose photo-
graph I'd taken.
"Our Bible says that Samson used to come to Gaza for his
pleasure. Are the two friends for whom we are looking at a
place where one may find public women for one's pleasure?"
I inquired teasingly.
The Arab wheeled around, shocked, momentarilv soeechless.
210 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
"We are very strict in Gaza/' he gasped. "If we found any
such places we would burn them. If we found any such
women we would hang them/' Quite upset, he left my com-
pany and did not talk to me again.
We walked to the clump of bushes, which thickened as we
went through them, and emerged into a narrow, dusty street.
Ahead was an angular, three-storied, gray stone house, set off
by itself, which appeared to be a hotel. Moustafa was on the
verge of entering when the two men we were seeking stepped
out. One of them was Abdul, a Green Shirt member. His
companion, also a youth in his early twenties, was from Gaza.
"We were praying," Abdul explained, smiling.
When we had walked back to Gaza's main street, we split
company. The others had been invited to a dinner party by
the Gaza Council member. It was getting dark fast. I turned
to Moustafa.
"What'll we do now?"
"We have been invited to another place/' Moustafa said
mysteriously. "We will go there later. First, let's find a place
to sleep."
The obvious place for us was the Grand Gaza Hotel, op-
posite the restaurant where we had eaten. The Grand Gaza
Hotel was strictly a misnomer. By American standards it was
fourth rate, but it was the best the city of Samson could offer.
Moustafa and I got a room on the top floor with two cots,
two chairs and a candle. There was no other furniture, not
even a washpan. To wash, one used the community tap and
community soap and towel on the floor below. The place was
reasonably clean and gave no evidence of harboring crawling
visitors. We washed, Moustafa again borrowed my comb,
and we stepped out.
"Where are we going, Moustafa?"
"You will be very much surprised. Trust me."
The streets were now pitch dark. There was no moon.
Electric power had been cut off long ago. Moustafa was not
familiar with the section and every few minutes he paused to
Return to Jerusalem 211
ask directions. Walking through a tortuous maze of blacked-
out alleys, stumbling over deep ruts and protruding rocks, I
felt we would never reach our destination, whatever Allah
had decreed it to be.
"Moustafa, you aren't taking me to Abdul's prayer house?"
"You are too impatient, Artour. Wait."
Finally we came to a high wall, followed it for a block, and
then turned to find ourselves before a high wide gate topped
with iron spikes. We banged on it. We heard the shuffling of
feet, and a voice, echoing sharply in the deathly stillness,
challenged us in Arabic. Moustafa answered; one of the doors
was swung open by an Arab, and we found ourselves in a
large courtyard. At the farther end was a house with lights
shining from the first- and second-story windows.
"Is it all right to speak English?"
"Yes. You can also talk German if you wish."
That put me on guard. The Arab gateman now opened an
inner door and motioned us into a large room lighted by two
kerosene lamps, which cast a flickering light on a group of
men standing near a large table covered with food.
DINNER WITH NAZI HERRENVOLK
MY GAZE swept past a well-dressed Arab in flowing robes,
who was apparently the host, and fell upon seven men, six of
them in uniform. The seventh was a brown-haired non-Ger-
man, apparently a Slav. His right sleeve hung empty from the
shoulder of his dark-green American officer's coat. All seven
stared at us stiffly.
"Guten Abend, KameradenJ Good evening, comrades.
Heil!" I said, giving the short-arm Nazi salute as I had done
innumerable times at Bund meetings.
A jet of steam appeared to have struck them: the faces
melted instantly and burst into smiles. The six snapped their
212 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
heels, heiled back in unison, and all began talking at once in
German.
"Ach, meine Freunde, meine Kunde der deutschen Sprache
ist ung/iielclicheRveise nfcht so gross wie meine Liebe fur das
deutsche Voflc. Ah, my friends. Unfortunately my knowl-
edge of German is not so strong as my love for the German
people/' Over and again I had used that at Bund meet-
ings.
One of the Nazis translated my effusion into Arabic, much
to the delight of our host. Seeing me so well received,
Moustafa added his praise of the manly, bold, loyal Arme-
nian who had been living with the Arabs. As usual, my Amer-
ican citizenship was an incidental detail. Our host, beside
himself, kept repeating: "Ahlan wa sahlen, mit ahlan wa
sahlen/ Sharraftuna/ Hallet el-baralcaJ Welcome and welcome
again! What an honor! What a pleasure! What a blessing
from Allah!"
The only one to speak English among the Germans was
introduced to me as Gerhard. He had a long face, dark hair,
and sideburns, and had perfected his English at a British
prisoner-of-war camp. As we sat down to a lavish dinner, I
asked him:
"How did you escape?"
"Through the Mufti's help. Twenty of us crossed the Canal
in a boat one night. Cars were waiting for us on the other
side."
"Only twenty have escaped?"
"Oh, no. More, hundreds more some by hiding under
merchandise in trucks. Others are disguising themselves as
Arabs and carrying false papers, and others get through by
bribing. Customs officials at Ismailia are friendly. Der Gross-
mufti makes all the arrangements. In a few days we expect
twenty-five more comrades here. They will come with guns."
"English guns?"
"Natiirlfch. Stolen from camp or sold by English soldiers.
The Arabs get much equipment that way."
Return to Jerusalem 213
"Who is our host?"
"He is a relative of the Mufti. Many of the Mufti's cousins
and nephews are in Gaza and rule the city. In a few weeks
Gaza will become the capital of the Mufti's Palestine govern-
ment. The Egyptian army will also make its headquarters
here."
"How many Germans in the Suez camps?" I asked.
"Many thousands. Perhaps 12,500 or more of the Afrika
Korps. There are also many high officers, even some generals.
Sitting at this table are a captain and two lieutenants. I was a
lieutenant with Rommel/' Gerhard said. After a moment he
shook his head. "These Arabs make big talk but do not fight
like an army. They are not trained. They do not know disci-
pline. We fought with them against the Jewish villages. We
know. That man/' he said, pointing to the amputee, "is a
Yugoslav Moslem. He lost his arm in Haifa. There's another
Yugoslav recuperating at the Civilian Hospital here in Gaza.
If you want to know about the Arabs as fighters, go see him.
He has been with them longer than I have."
Our host was generous, and constantly pushed platters of
food before us. "Tafaddal. Please." The Nazis eat heartily.
They seemed happy and confident, and only one of them
Friedrich, a short but powerfully built young man in leggings
appeared surly. He said little, but appeared to be watching
me carefully.
Finally our host had the coffee brought in.
"Sallim idelc, may God preserve your hands," I said. Later,
when I had finished the tar-black brew and put down the cup,
I added: "Kahwe daime. May you always have coffee/'
My host beamed at my choice vocabulary.
It was eleven o'clock as Moustafa and I rose to leave. There
was much salaaming and hand shaking back and forth. The
Nazis except Friedrich, who gave us a cold, correct quick
handshake pumped our hands. Our host said, "Sharrifna
tani, marra, insh'allah. Come again when Allah wills it.
"Mae es-salame. Mae es-salame. God speed. God speed."
214 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
"MamnunaL Our thanks to you/' we said, and walked into
the night.
THE MADMAN
MOUSTAFA and I walked in silence through the blacked-
out streets. Gaza was as dead as Samson's Tomb, with not a
living thing visible or audible. Only an occasional light flick-
ered from a second-story window: those on the first floor were
either heavily latticed or covered with wooden shutters
locked tight. Then, in the silence, I became aware of a muffled
shuffling of feet behind us. I turned around several times
uneasily, but saw nothing.
"Somebody is following us, Moustafa. Stop now, and
listen. . . ."
The shuffling continued for a few seconds, then stopped.
It began again when we resumed walking.
"You are right/' Moustafa said, softly, reaching for his
holster. "What have you to protect yourself?"
"You know I have nothing but a Boy Scout knife."
We walked faster. "How many are there?" I asked.
"I think only one, unless they are keeping in perfect step."
I recalled that Bedouin tribes sometimes welcomed a
stranger, or even an enemy, to their home, honored him at
their table, then followed him and stabbed him later. I won-
dered if our host would attempt such a thing. Or could it be
some of the Nazis Friedrich, for instance? It could be a
Follower of Truth. And there was the Gaza man whom I'd in-
sulted at the beach. His kind were known to hire assassins.
... It was still a long way to the Grand Gaza Hotel.
Without breaking step Moustafa leaned over and whis-
pered: "When I take your hand in mine, run. Then we will
hide."
We broke into a double run, hand in hand, and heard our
pursuer follow.
Return to Jerusalem 215
"If there are more than one we do nothing/' Moustafa
said, breathing hard. "If we see only one, I will go for his
throat, you strike at his heart. But make no noise. Be sure
nothing drops from your pockets. . . . Now hide in that
doorway. I will be on this side. . . /'
We slunk into the shadows, opposite each other, so that
the pursuer would have to pass between us. I pulled back as
far as I could. Although Moustafa was hardly fifteen feet
away he was invisible. I waited, breathing heavily but noise-
lessly through my mouth.
A figure emerged dimly from the blackness of night and
approached slowly. He veered to. the right the side where I
was crouching. He hugged the walls, apparently suspecting a
trap. I bent low, my knife blade open, ready to pounce on
him if he attacked first. The shadowy figure slipped by within
three feet of me. I saw him peering to the left and ahead of
him. He was a short man, wearing what seemed to be a
European coat and narrow trousers. He passed, and I waited
for a few minutes that seemed endless.
"Moustafa/' I whispered hoarsely. "He's gone."
"Sssshhh. Maybe he also is hiding. Wait/ 7
I straightened out, glued myself against the doorway and
now saw the outlines of Moustafa's husky frame. After sev-
eral more minutes he moved out of the doorway. "Stick
close/' I followed him. There was no sound now except our
soft tread. Either the pursuer had continued up the street,
or was lurking somewhere in the inky stillness. We moved
ahead gingerly, and the suspense became even more unbear-
able than before. But we had lost all track of the stranger. The
riddle of his identity deepened. Who? Why? Had we been
wise in hiding?
It was midnight when we broke into the town square, as
dark and deserted as the rest of Gaza. We walked cautiously
past the boarded shops of main street, and slipped into our
hotel. No one seemed to be in the narrow vestibule. The ho-
tel itself was on the second floor, the entrance barred by an
216 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
iron grated door midway on the stairs. We knocked. The
night clerk called out sleepily from an inner room. He would
not let us in, he said, until he had looked us up in the register.
It would take a few minutes Arab minutes! We sat down
on the stairs in the dark while the clerk, cursing the world at
large, looked for the register. At long last he demanded the
details of Moustafa's registration. I had to call out my pass-
port number and spell out my name. Finally the clerk, in
slippers and red striped pajamas, stumbled down his half of
the stairs and let us go up.
"I must be careful," he explained. "There was a stranger
here a short time ago/'
"Who was he?" Moustafa asked quickly.
"I do not know. He was not an Arab."
The iron gate had hardly been closed when someone
crashed open the door below. Then there was a knocking and
shaking of the iron grill The terrified night clerk begged us
to take charge. Moustafa's queries brought a reply in hesitant
but adequate Arabic, spoken in a heavy guttural accent.
"It's one of the Germans," Moustafa said.
"Invite him to our room."
"First we will take away his gun if he has any."
He certainly had one. At the point of Moustafa's drawn
pistol, the Nazi placed his revolver on the night clerk's desk.
We followed the German to our room and made him sit on
the chair while Moustafa and I faced him from our beds. It
was Friedrich: a beet-red, prematurely bald, ugly man with
colorless eyes buried in a hatchet face. He came to the point
with surprising frankness.
"I followed you to shoot you," he said in good English.
I felt a pricking of my scalp.
"One, or the both of us?" I asked.
"You," he snarled. "You are a Jew!"
Moustafa and I laughed nervously. "Artour is an Arme-
nian," Moustafa said.
"That is the same as a Jew. The English, the Jews, the
Return to Jerusalem 217
Armenians, and the Americans must be exterminated!**
There was no doubt that Friedrich meant it, for his eyes took
on an almost maniacal look.
It required a long time and a full display of my assorted
documents, including the one obtained from my church at-
testing to my Christian faith, to prove to him that Jews were
Jews and Armenians were Armenians. "We are such old-time
Aryans," I said, "that Bundesfiihrer Fritz Kuhn once said
that Christ was an Armenian, not a Jew/' It happened to be
true the fact that Kuhn told the lie.
When the German left it was past two o'clock. We snuffed
out the candle. It was a long time before I fell asleep.
"THE MOST STUPID SOLDIERS"
"WHAT are we going to do this morning, Moustafa?'*
"As soon as Paris comes we will go to El Arish for the
guns/'
I wanted to talk to the Yugoslav at the hospital. "Moustafa,
let's first go to the hospital/ 7 I suggested. "There are Arme-
nian nurses there. I will introduce you to them. Take your
pick/'
I counted on Moustafa to get me inside the hospital. I
wasn't sure I could manage it myself. Things worked out as
planned. While Moustafa indulged in a blind-alley flirtation
with two Armenian nurses, I strolled through the wards. One
of the patients introduced himself to me as Nazar Chalawitch,
a former captain in Yugoslav quisling Pavelich's army, now
an Arab fighter who was convalescing. I told him I was
Gerhard's friend.
"How did you get hurt?" I asked.
"Fighting with the most stupid, the most cowardly, the
most inefficient soldiers I have ever seen,'* Nazar exploded.
"The Germans and I gave the Arabs many good ideas to de-
218 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
stroy the Jewish villages. They are afraid of anything new.
They say it will cost them too much money. They are waiting
for Allah to help them!"
Deeply embittered, he went on: "If those Arabs had fol-
lowed orders we'd have cleaned out the Jews long ago. Take
this village outside Gaza [Kibbutz Kfar Darom]. We made a
perfect plan to attack it with three columns: 34 Germans
and eight Yugoslavs in one column, 210 Ikhwan in another;
a hundred Followers of Truth making the third column. We
were to assemble exactly at midnight and march from three
sides. The Germans were on time. Ikhwan came three hours
late. The others just before sunrise! We couldn't surprise
the Jews. We attacked anyway lost about forty men. A bul-
let went through my hip."
When I returned to Moustafa, he had already given up his
strenuous attempts to date one of the nurses. Outside the
hospital he turned to me and blew up. "Must you be a saint
to go out with an Armenian? 7 ' he demanded, disgusted.
"Yallah/"
Fans was waiting for us at the hotel with a truck, and off
we went to the Egyptian military base at El Arish, where we
were directed to a thick-walled, heavily guarded building.
Only one person at a time was allowed entry, and Paris went
in with what he said were receipts for the guns we expected.
He emerged to say that no one knew anything about them.
"Go in yourself, Moustafa, and ask/'
Moustafa returned empty-handed, a dejected figure. The
guns had simply disappeared. "If we don't find those guns and
sell them, I have lost everything. I borrowed the money/' he
said pathetically.
"Don't worry, Moustafa. Allah will find them/'
Faris whose investment was much larger than Moustafa's
seemed unconcerned. He chatted amiably all the way back
to Gaza.
Two mornings later Faris announced we could ride part
way to Jerusalem, at least. He had located a sheik's son who
Return to Jerusalem 219
had driven in to buy gasoline and was prepared to give us a
lift to Jerusalem. We gladly accepted his offer. Of the Green
Shirts, we could locate only Sammy and Ismail. We left the
others behind and set off.
WE ARRIVE AT THE TOMB CITY
HALF WAY to Jerusalem the road was marked by ancient
olive groves, the trees gnarled like an octogenarian's hand.
Between the trees a farmer ploughed with a camel the skirts
of his gallabiya pulled above the knees and tucked into a
sash around his waist, revealing his loose underwear. The
plough was of wood, as in the days when Abraham first
trudged over these fields. Down the road came barefooted
women with enormous bundles of brushwood balanced on
their heads, overshadowing their faces. Walking with her
mother, a little girl balanced a large kettle, black with soot, on
her head. In the shade a group of men lounged, gossiping and
smoking, their donkeys dozing behind them. In the fields,
the women worked. This was the Arab world.
We reached a hilltop: below us spread a deep-green valley.
A sparkling stream wound its way around a tiny hamlet
in the foothills. In the distance rose the spires of Jerusalem.
To our right were the four kibbutzim composing the Kfar
Etzion block. As we stopped to rest, a truck laden with volun-
teers drove up, and we heard the latest news. It was bad. The
Arabs were being pushed back gradually from their New City
positions. The rich Arabs and most of the Arab leaders had
already fled Jerusalem. "The deserting cowards!" Moustafa
exploded. The Arabs lacked heavy guns and there was disunity
in the leadership since Abdul Kader el Husseini's death.
We moved into Jerusalem. I had come here for the first
time only three weeks before. The city had changed radically.
Its heart had been plucked out, its life-throb silenced. It was
220 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
late afternoon when we arrived, but there were few pedes-
trians, mostly old people. Roadblocks, sandbags, dragon's-
teeth were everywhere, and barbed wire coated with rust.
Most of the homes were deserted, the shops boarded up.
Tommies in khaki, wearing berets with red pompoms,
prowled in armored cars. They searched and questioned every-
one crossing from one zone to another; after that, Jewish and
Arab vigilantes took over. Overturned trucks lay rusting,
stripped of tires and movable gear. Dynamited buildings were
everywhere. The dark red pool in the middle of the street
might be the spot where a horse had bled to death, or a man
was shot. The ripped-up sidewalk marked the explosion of
a mortar.
Cities, I thought, are like human beings. Dressed in brick,
mortar, stone and steel, they beat with a pulse that is the col-
lective soul of their people. They live, breathe, and die like
humans. There are ghost cities; cities of sin or sorrow, hard
and harsh and masculine like New York; reckless and free
cities; tradition-bound cities; hectic cities; sleepy cities; or gay
and feminine cities, like Paris. When they are living, cities have
souls of their own. But when the creeping paralysis of terror
comes, they die inside like human beings.
The little things that make the world come alive a woman
with a shopping basket, gossipping; a man waiting for a bus,
smoking; an exasperated mother spanking her bawling child;
a busy grocery, a coffee shop, a traffic policeman all these
were now gone from Jerusalem. Fear and death were in the
air you breathed, in every step you took. There was the terror
of the unseen trigger-hand English, Arab, Jew, depending
on which side you stood in the whine of every bullet, the
crash of every shell. The poisons of hatred, long simmering,
were now erupting and spilling over on every side of the once
Holy City. A sense of impending calamity hung in the air; a
dread vacuum was the new spirit, and desolation the "new
look" of the tomb city.
(CHAPTER XII)
WITH THE ARABS IN JERUSALEM
From the lampposts hang all the RABBIS
But hang HERTZOG highest of all
And when you have hung all the Jew-boys
Then blow up their damned WAILING WALL.
AMO [Arab Military Organization]
I STOOD under a tree on the Hill of Evil Counsel on an in-
comparably beautiful and clear May morning, each Jerusalem
landmark radiantly etched against a cloudless sky. Sheep
grazed in the olive grove below me guarded by an Arab in
battle dress, rifle on lap, grenades dangling from his belt. In
the heavens, God was in His glory. On earth hate reigned
supreme. The whine of snipers' bullets was constant, like the
drone of a giant mosquito. It was the season for mating, but
shells and the rattle of machine-guns had driven off the birds.
Jerusalem was beginning to fall apart as a city, disintegrat-
ing. Mail delivery had stopped. The railroad yard was deserted.
The magistrates had fled: the courts and police stations were
closed. Law and order was in the hands of local committees.
You were condemned, imprisoned, or shot by vigilante gangs.
Thieving was normal and went unpunished. It began with a
deserted home, and continued with the theft of British army
and government property: office furniture, files, furnaces,
doors, windowpanes. Vehicles trucks, jeeps, armored cars,
even post-office vans were stolen unless under guard.
222 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
The Palestine Post ran a daily column listing casualties. By
May 1, 1948, 5,014 had died (189 English, 1,236 Jews, 3,569
Arabs) and 6,632 had been wounded.
I strolled over to the Public Information Office and wan-
dered into the small canteen operated there for the cor-
respondents. Jewish and Arab newspapermen still mixed:
coolly, suspiciously. The Jewish boys came mainly to get a
good meal. Ahmed, the Arab counterman, served eggs, milk,
beer, potatoes, and coffee, and had cigarettes for sale all rare
in the New City. When Jews tried to buy food to take home,
Ahmed would say: "If I sold it to you the Arabs would cut
my body into small pieces/' I met an Arab here, named Nassib
Boulos, working for the British as a propagandist, and at the
same time serving as a string correspondent for Life magazine.
Boulos always hovered around the American newsmen, trying
to get a line on each one. He came over to my table.
"I hear you're a Zionist."
"I don't know what Zionism is. I haven't seen enough of
the Jews."
I had a premonition that Boulos would cross my path later
on, and make trouble. In the days that followed, a series of
nasty anti-Jewish booklets and leaflets began to circulate
among correspondents, anonymously signed "AMO" the
Arab Military Organization, an adjunct of the Mufti's Arab
Higher Committee. Addressed to "British Soldiers! British
Policemen! British Civilians!" they sought to incite non-Arabs
against the Jews. One of the leaflets was in doggerel:
Put a bomb in the [Jewish] Agency Buildings
Wipe the Synagogues all off the earth,
And make every damned son of ZION
Regret the day of his birth.
From the lampposts hang all the RABBIS
But hang HERTZOG x highest of all
And when you have hung all the Jew-boys
1 Dr. Isaac Halevy Herzog, then Chief Rabbi of Palestine, later Rabbi of
Israel.
With the Arabs in Jerusalem 223
Then blow up their damned WAILING WALL. . . .
You will find you are down as the Heroes
Of the last and the greatest Crusade,
And then you will all go to HEAVEN
And I WILL BE THERE AS WELL.
And we all charge our glasses,
AND DRINK tO JEWS THERE IN
LIFE IN OSBORNE HOUSE
AGAINST the panorama of growing death and destruction,
life was exciting in Osborne House, our Arab headquarters on
Deir Aboutor. It had become suicidal to cross no-man's land;
I made no attempt now, as I had when here earlier, to sleep
at the "Y." The road was under constant and intense Arab
surveillance. So I lived with the boys in Osborne House, sleep-
ing with them on mats; shaving, washing, and bathing daily
in a pint of water or less. Our diet consisted of olives, scallions,
halvah, and stale bread donated by Old City bakeries. Occa-
sionally we would have bean stew, or goulash of some kind,
cooked by Sabri, who during our absence had become quarter-
master. Captain Zaki had feathered his nest nicely: he was
second in charge of Deir Aboutor defenses and Moustafa
found himself out of place. Sammy and Ismail made them-
selves at home sleeping together on adjoining mats in a store-
room. Paris strutted about like a general.
The collection of Green Shirts and other volunteers had be-
come more bizarre. Syrian soldiers swarthy, sullen fellows,
bristling with weapons had requisitioned an adjoining house.
They loved to have their pictures taken and I obliged them by
running a souvenir picture service. They taught me much
about Arab life and habits. Every afternoon I watched them
strip down to the waist and engage in a traditional Arab past-
time: lice-hunting. They picked their clothes clean, but never
9.94 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
cleaned their rifles. A rifle is supposed to be cleaned and oiled
periodically, if not after every battle. But in all the months I
was with the Arabs I never saw one cleaned or oiled. Nor did
I see any being repaired. If a rifle didn't work, it was usually
laid aside.
The Arabs were equally careless with hand-grenades. My
most anxious moments were spent when the volunteers began
toying with English- and French-made grenades, tossing them
from hand to hand, or taking them apart "to see what was
inside/' I heard of many fatal accidents and met several hor-
ribly mutilated Arabs. Whenever I was about, a half dozen
would encircle me, unhook their grenades, jiggle the pull-ring,
and do other weird stunts threatening to blow us all up. Fd
dash behind the sandbags while they, the brave Arabs, played
with dynamite and laughed at the terrified Amrikani.
I observed that the fat-bellied Zaki paid increasing attention
to Ismail. At first Ismail slept at Osborne House, with the rest
of the volunteers. Then one day he removed his belongings
and went to a nearby house which Captain Zaki had appropri-
ated for himself and other members of the defense staff. Every
morning after this Sabri would soft-boil four eggs, wrap them
in a towel, and take them over, together with oranges, bananas,
cheese, honey or jam, halvah, olives, white bread, and coffee.
We all envied this diet and grumbled to- Sabri about it.
"These are my orders. I must do as the captain commands/*
To cut into these regal breakfasts, I determined to get into
Ismail's good graces. This was not difficult, I suggested taking
his photograph. I decorated him with guns and cartridge
belts, told him he was handsome, and photographed him to
his heart's delight. When he offered to pay, I suggested settling
for a breakfast. Next morning Sabri asked me to come along
when he took breakfast over. Taking six soft-boiled eggs and
quantities of other food, he led me to a room which was bare
except for two beds, a chest of drawers, and a table. Zaki and
Ismail were in their pajamas. I pulled up a chair and joined
them at breakfast. Later, by photographing Zaki gratis and
With the Arabs in Jerusalem 225
taking more pictures of Ismail I made sure of a fine breakfast
every morning until the Mandate ended and real war broke
out.
In charge of our arsenal in Osbome House a small
boarded-up back room piled -high with sandbags was one of
the bloodthirstiest Arabs I ever met. He was a thin, morbid
fanatic with blazing eyes, named Ali. I won his friendship by
photographing him repeatedly in the act of firing a Bren gun.
Thereafter he would often tip me off to the location of extra
food on the premises. We would steal it together and eat it
in the privacy of our arsenal. I was careful not to cross Ali,
for he had a vile temper. I had seen him fly at a Green Shirter
with a knife; only the brawny Moustafa was able to stop him.
Sitting on a box of bullets or grenades, I would look at Ali
with the conviction that I was facing a dormant savage, a
ruthless killer whose passions were violently suppressed. One
day, after we had finished a can of purloined sardines, I started
off impressively with a bare-faced lie:
"Ali, I have studied medicine, psychology, and the science
of the human mind. I can tell many things about a person by
looking at him. You are a very strong and a brave Arab, but
you are afraid to do what your heart dictates. Tell me what
it is. Maybe we can do it together/'
Ali looked at me intently, with a savage glint in his eyes
which made me uncomfortable. We were alone; he was
armed, and I knew that I was no match for a man whom I felt
instinctively was a killer. ... Ali opened up gradually, first
by confessing that as a boy he had beaten a playmate to death
because he caught him stealing. Growing up in a Cairo slum
with no schooling or formal training Ali had developed a
fanatic sense of right and wrong. All wrong was to be punished
by death in order to end the progeny of wrongdoers and
eliminate evil from the world.
"Who will determine what is right and wrong?" I asked.
"I make the judgment," Ali said. He had been jailed. "It
226 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
was my own fault. I was careless/' he explained, then told me
this story. He had been delegated to do away with an Egyptian
official in Cairo. Planning the attack carefully, Ali had made
a sketch of the official's itinerary and marked with an X the
spot from which he was to fire his revolver. In his excitement
Ali had lost the diagram.
"I didn't need the paper. I remembered everything/' he
said, "I was at the place an hour early. I had the gun in my
coat pocket, with my hand always on the trigger. I was afraid
I would shoot myself, so I went into a doorway to change the
position of my gun. Four men followed me. They beat me on
the head, and took me to the karafcol. They had found my
diagram on the street. In my house the police found another
sketch. They beat me again, and once again in the karafcol.
I confessed because I did not want to be beaten any more. I
was in jail two years." Ali's appetite had been merely whetted.
"I want revenge. I failed in my duty once. I must clear myself
before Allah. I must kill Jews, many Jews. I must kill till my
arm is tired. I must not stop killing Jews till the bodies are this
high. . . ." The wild Arab brought one hand to his chin.
"I must do one more thing. . . . For this I need your help,
Artour."
"Your wish is my command, Ali."
"I want you to come with me the next time we fight the
Yahood. When I catch a Jew alive I want you to be with me
with your camera/'
"Why do you want me with my camera?" I asked curiously.
"I want you to take one picture of me holding the living
Jew by the throat. I want you to take another picture while I
stab the Jew in the neck. Then I want pictures as I stab him
again and again in the neck, in the face, in the heart, in his
belly . . . with this knife!" Ali whipped out a vicious blade.
"After I have killed the Jew I want you to photograph me
drinking his blood."
"While it is still warm, I suppose."
With the Arabs in Jerusalem 227
"Yes, while it is running warm from his body/' Ali af-
firmed.
"Okay, 111 take the pictures!"
What else could I say?
A HUNTING PARTY
THAT night Ali, Moustafa, Captain Zaki, Fans, and a dozen
others participated in a party to which I was invited. All after-
noon the Arabs had been carting in clothing and furniture.
Toward evening, Captain Zaki sent for me. Accompanied by
two of the gang we walked for several hundred yards until we
came to a home in a clump of trees. Household goods were
piled high in the doorway. The doors had been smashed open.
Inside, I found the boys going through the drawers, sounding
the walls and floor.
"This was the house of a Jew," Captain Zaki said. "We want
you to look at this photograph equipment and tell us what
it's worth/'
From a drawer he fished out odd accessories, worth only a
pound or two.
"Whose home was it?" I asked curiously.
"We don't know. It's the house of a Jew," Captain Zaki
repeated. "Now we want you to go through his books and
papers and tell us if he was a spy."
The library was in shambles, with books strewn everywhere.
Many were in German and French, a few in Hebrew. There
were also numerous phonograph records and art albums. The
Arabs looked at them, tore out some pages, threw down the
rest, and stamped on them. The owners had obviously been
scholars of some sort. In a pile of papers kicked into a corner,
I found my first clue, a stack of calling cards: "Dr. Albert K.
Henschel, Dr. Elizabeth Henschel-Simon." Rummaging
around, I found an envelope addressed to "Mrs. Simon
228 CAIRO TO DAMASCU
Henschel, Dept. of Antiquities, Jerusalem." Inside was a lei
ter on the stationery of the Palestine Exploration Fund, Lou
don. It was dated July 16, 1938, and gave details for a nev
museum exhibit case.
A more revealing letter was addressed to Mrs. Simon
Henschel, "Palestine Archaeological Museum/' Numerous let
ters in unreadable German script bore the return address
"Dr. Henschel, American Expedition, Akaba." A letter fron
"Mrs. Rose Pandelides, Chicago/' announced the death of he
husband, "Costa." Mrs. Henschel-Siinon's typewritten answe-
told all I needed to know about the couple in whose home ]
found myself:
We feel so much with you and understand your sorrow. We
wanted to tell you and Mr. Pandelides who was with us when
we first saw this country, what had happened to us and how
happy we feel. We are grateful to Fate who seems to give us
some quiet years before trouble starts again. Because this East
is as treacherous a soil as Europe is. But meanwhile we enjoy
our work and our little house [the one that we were now in]
which we have got just outside the town so that we can reach
it in a few minutes with the car.
My husband has taken up his advertising drawing with good
success which suffered only through the disturbances, and I
do again museum work as I did in Germany. As Mr. Rocke-
feller enabled the work to be done on a broader base than the
[Palestinian] Government would have done by itself, I feel
very much indebted to America. But if you come East, we
hope you will come and see us. ...
Captain Zaki came over. "What have you found?"
"Only letters. The Jews here were refugees from Germany."
I looked through another handful. One from England, was
from "Kathrine," to "Aunt Ebeth":
I had ever so many presents for Christmas and my birth-
day. Mummy made me a green costume with a tweed jacket
With the Arabs in Jerusalem 229
and bought me a camel hair coat with a hood. Also I had some
books and chocolates. . . . They have built four Air Raid
Shelters in our playground, so that we don't have much room
to play in. ... Have you still got any cats in your house? We
haven't any animals at present. Dorothea wants some very
badly, but Daddy is rather against the idea.
I was moved, reading these letters from one stranger to an-
other. How could one ever foretell the course of life? . . .
"What are these?" Carrying a strongbox under one arm.
Captain Zaki brought over a cabinet filled with film negatives
photographs of Arab life. It was a precious collection.
"I would like to have these for myself," I said.
"We will take it up with the defense committee/' Zaki
answered, stiffly. "We will go back now/'
He turned, strongbox under one arm, cabinet under the
other, and walked out. Holding a stack of letters, I followed
him. Night had come, dark and moonless. But not silent.
Jerusalem was rarely quiet at night. The rat-tat-tat of ma-
chine-gun and the sharp crack of a rifle mingled with the
muffled roar of a shell. On this night tracer bullets were
swishing through the darkness like a swarm of fiery comets. I
showed the way with a flashlight. Behind us the boys were
carting away household goods in wheelbarrows and improvised
stretchers. Zaki and I talked little; we had little in common.
Since coming to Deir Aboutor he had grown fat through over-
eating and overindulging.
"What are you going to do with the books and furniture,
Zaki?"
"Sell them in Jerusalem and use the money for arms and
food."
Back at the Osborne House everyone gathered around the
strongbox Zaki had been carrying. It was small, heavy, and
important-looking. It was^passed from hand to hand, as each
tried with jack-knife and screwdriver to force the lock. The
Arabs fumed and sweated and cursed, but the combined might
230 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
and main of the Deir Aboutor defense proved unable to open
a metal box about a foot square.
"Get the American!"
"Will you give me the negatives if I open the box?" I bar-
gained.
I took a close look at the box. It was shaped like a sardine
can only larger and stronger. I laid it upside down, while
Zaki and Fans put their feet at both ends to keep it steady. I
hammered the edge of a screwdriver against the metal, and
within a few minutes had opened the box much to the
amazement of the Arabs.
"You are very clever, Artour," Zaki said.
"Will you give me the negatives now?"
The strong box was placed on the table, and the Arabs
gathered around in anticipation. One by one the articles were
pulled out. They were a few Palestinian coins, a folded docu-
ment in German which seemed to be a deed to something,
and a stack of receipted bills. The Henschels hadn't proved
the fools the Arabs had taken them to be. ... I had my eyes
on the negative file. Though I tried again and again, and even
offered Zaki five pounds a huge sum for a penniless adven-
ture he could not induce the others to part with it.
THE ARABS IN ACTION
NEXT morning hell broke loose. Up to this time Haganah
forces had ignored us, apparently unaware of our strong Arab
concentrations at Deir Aboutor. But by ten a.m. bullets were
whizzing over our heads. At first they were wild and whistled
through the trees, but they were soon bouncing off the stone
masonry of Osborne House. It was time to duck and fight
back.
Yallah/
Moustafa, whose leadership up to this time had been
With the Arabs in Jerusalem 231
eclipsed by Zaki's superior political generalship, assumed com-
mand of about forty men. Bren gun in hand, he waved them
toward an embankment above a grove where sheep grazed.
But the sheep had already disappeared by the time Moustafa
and his men set up their machine-guns. He and the gang made
a terrific din, firing wildly in the general direction of Jews,
sending over ten shells to every Jewish shell. Taking advantage
of the Arabs* passion for firing off their weapons, the Haganah
deliberately provoked them to fire with all they had, wasting
their ammunition against entrenched Jewish positions. By this
and other devices, the Jews time and again succeeded in re-
ducing the effect of the superior firing power of the Arabs.
"They are going to attack us," Moustafa yelled, excitedly,
firing another round. "We must show we are not afraid, and
have plenty of bullets/'
Promptly at noon the Haganah ceased its fire, but the Arabs
kept going until their ammunition gave out. I was convinced
that the Haganah was either probing into the strength of our
Deir Aboutor defenders, or was feinting while it planned to
attack elsewhere. In a few hours the Jewish plan became evi-
dent
We had just finished a meal of bread and cold vegetable
stew when an Iraqi courier rushed in excitedly. Moustafa faced
him. Zaki had been absent during the morning fighting; and
although he was nominally in charge, he now sat passively
while Moustafa took over. I thought of how often action ex-
poses one's true character.
"The Jews are attacking Katamon! Every man come to
help!"
"Yallahf" Moustafa's roaring voice rallied a rabble of sev-
eral hundred Holy Warriors. "Yallah, Katamon/" About a
dozen were left behind with Zaki, including, of course,
Ismail. The Egyptians and Syrians leaped into trucks and
armored buses, and I climbed in on the heels of Moustafa,
not daring to leave his side. Off we roared toward Katamon,
a suburb of Jerusalem built on a slow-rising hill. On its crest
232 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
was the Greek Monastery of St. Simeon, whose sanctity had
long ago been violated by Iraqi troops who made it their
headquarters. They were part of an estimated eight thousand
foreign Arabs who had infiltrated into the Jerusalem area.
From the heights of Katamon the Iraqis had been keeping up
a day and night bombardment of a sprawling Jewish settle-
ment, named Mekor Hayim, in the valley below, as well as
Rehavia, and other sections of the New City.
Jammed with Holy Warriors, our trucks roared up in time
to see a group of Iraqis setting up a mortar and begin blazing
away toward Mekor Hayim. While some of our own boys
dashed up to the crest of the hill, Moustafa and others took
positions behind barricades and also began to fire in a wild
and haphazard fashion at the Jewish settlement, which was
minding its own business as far as I could see, and at the
moment wasn't attacking anyone. The Arab Legion troops,
easily identified by their spear-tipped Kaiser Wilhelm helmets,
and Palestinian police with their black woolen ka.lpa.ks also
participated. Except for these trained soldiers and the Iraqis,
Syrians, and Moustafa, the others were all rabble. They used
short-range Sten-type guns to fire at objectives a mile away.
I saw one fellow, wearing enormous baggy trousers, his head
swathed in a turban, place his rifle on the wall, duck behind
it, and fire straight into the horizon. He repeated the stunt
till his ammunition gave out. Quite satisfied with himself, he
shouldered his rifle and went home.
Moustafa chose this moment to ask me to take his picture.
For five full minutes firing ceased along the barricade facing
Mekor Hayim, while the Holy Warriors lined up for their
pictures. It almost proved my undoing, because a little later,
when I had temporarily lost sight of Moustafa, my exposed
camera caused two Arabs in civilian dress to pounce on me
and begin hauling me away. "Moustafa, Moustafa!" I yelled
at the top of my voice. Moustafa emerged from the rear of
a truck, where he was helping himself to cold lamb and
With the Arabs in Jerusalem 233
which had just been brought in. From then on I followed
Moustafa like a shadow.
It was dusk when we decided to call it a day. Arabs usually
retired from fighting after sundown, and expected the Jews to
do the same. The Jews, however, did the opposite. The
Haganah did its best work under cover of darkness. Sneaking
unseen upon the enemy, it combined daring with the element
of total surprise and usually succeeded in terrifying the Arabs.
Another advantage of night attack was that the darkness hid
the numbers of the woefully small though superbly trained
Jewish units. Under these conditions events proved that one
inspired Haganah commando was easily worth ten average
Arabs.
This was true here too. For by nightfall the Jews had cap-
tured the strategic heights of Katamon and our Holy War-
riors had clambered into trucks and rolled back to Deir
Aboutor in the silence and gloom of defeat. Later, from Deir
Aboutor, we heard the muffled blasting of Jewish sappers as
they moved forward consolidating their positions. In the
Monastery of St. Simeon, Jews found instructions in German
as well as Arabic, a wholly reasonable discovery in view of
Iraq's history during World War II. (See Chapter XXII).
The following morning Moustafa took me aside.
"Artour," he said. "You remember Hamid Sharkaf?"
I remembered Hamid Sharkaf . I knew him as John Kenny,
a twenty-one-year-old boy from Glasgow, with red cheeks and
an ever present smile. Before he deserted from the British
army on the Arab promise of 15 a month, he had been at-
tached to the Royal Engineers. His specialty was mine-laying
and demolition-bomb-making; he also taught the Arabs how
to use their British machine-guns. "Hamid Sharkaf was the
name he had taken among the Arabs, after the fashion of many
of the British deserters.
"He is dead," Moustafa said, genuinely sorry.
"How did he die?"
34 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
"At Katamon. We killed him last night by mistake. He
wouldn't retreat with the rest of our boys, so when the Jews
chased him to our lines, we took him for a Jew and killed
him/'
"He was Catholic/' I said. "Who buried him?"
"The Arab soldiers. They dug a grave in the Moslem ceme-
tery by the Dome of the Rock, and the imam said a prayer/ 7
So died and so was buried many a British soldier!
Moustafa went on to tell me of the unfair tactics the Jews
had employed in capturing upper Katamon. The Jews had
retreated from a strategic building, leading the Arabs into a
completely booby-trapped house. A time-bomb had blown up
Arabs engaged in peaceful sniping. Mines had gone off in the
most unexpected places. Buildings had collapsed in mysterious
explosions. The Arabs were complete strangers to this form
of modem warfare. They learned while they died.
The Arab position had now badly deteriorated. The
Haganah made new inroads into Katamon, and threatened
seizure of Talpioth, another suburb which adjoined our own
Deir Aboutor. Once in control of Talpioth, the Jews would
be masters of the Bethlehem-Jerusalem road, and could force
us down the steep embankment of Deir Aboutor into the
Valley of Hinnom. We were virtually the only remaining
Arab unit with a foothold anywhere in the New City.
To everyone's astonishment the Arabs were losing on nearly
every front. Haifa, the leading port in the Middle East, with
an Arab population of seventy thousand and a priceless oil re-
finery, had fallen to the Jews within thirty hours. Palestine's
second port, Jaffa, an all-Arab city adjoining Tel Aviv, had
crumbled into Jewish hands. Some fifty thousand Arabs had
fled Jaffa. 2 Farther north, Safad, Tiberius, and the fortress city
2 This flight-psychosis, which prevailed among the Arabs and ultimately
resulted in the frantic exodus of many Moslems and Christians, is a difficult
phenomenon to explain. It was a mass hysteria induced by poor morale and by
fear of revenge and retribution for the Arab massacres and lootings from
1920 on.
Arab leaders particularly in the Mufti's Arab Higher Committee urged
With the Arabs in Jerusalem 235
of Acre which even Napoleon could not capture from the
Turks had all been seized by the Haganah in a series of bril-
liant maneuvers. What innate power motivated these sons of
David? I didn't yet have the answer from the Jewish side. But
with the Arabs I had been learning some of the reasons why
the Jehad was daily proving such a failure.
Moustafa, however, seemed to have no worries. Toward
evening one day I found him sitting on a rock. I walked up
quietly and sat beside him.
"Things are not going so well with us, Moustafa/' I said.
"The Jews haven't tasted real Arab steel and lead yet,"
Moustafa said confidently. "Artour, you have seen only the
work of untrained volunteers. You are making a mistake if you
judge the power of the regular Arab armies from these Holy
Warriors. What we are doing here is tiring the Jew, worrying
residents to clear the fighting areas, promising them that Palestine would be
cleared of Jews within thirty days after the Mandate ended. After the Jews had
been pushed into the sea, Arab leaders said, Palestinians could return to their
homes and at the same time share in Jewish booty. They implied that those
who refused to leave were pro-Zionist; such people were threatened with re-
prisals.
In contrast, I know of instances where the Jews begged the Arabs, par-
ticularly the Christian elements, to remain, guaranteeing their safety and full
respect for property. These Christians, however, joined the fleeing Moslems,
fearing the promised retribution following the promised Arab victory. As an
instance, the Armenians, who had always got along well with Arab and Jew
alike, joined the panicky Moslems, horror-stricken by the memory of the
Turkish massacres.
Wealthy merchants, physicians, bankers, politicians, and other leaders
were the first to leave. Later came the poorer elements until, by the time the
Mandate expired, those remaining were largely only the ill and aged, the
looters, and the innocents.
The exodus figure of 750,000 or more Arabs is sheer propaganda, a fictional
number that cannot be supported by the facts. The populace in the country
from Jerusalem north to Jericho was not disturbed by the fighting, nor were
the Arabs and Christians resident in the congested areas within the quadrangle
formed by Ramallah, Tulkarm, Jenin, and Nablus Palestinian territory now
annexed by Jordan. It must also be pointed out that many of the Moslem
so-called refugees were homeless, nomadic wanderers in the first place. Poor,
nonrefugee Arabs, such as those in Gaza, have claimed refugee status in order
to qualify for American aid.
286 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
him, keeping him running here and there until the armies of
Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and fighters from Yemen
and Saudi Arabia and the Moslem countries of North Africa
join the Jehad." He paused. "Then you will see slaughter,
Artour. Then you will see us march to Tel Aviv/'
"How long will it take us, Moustafa?"
"Thirty days not thirty-one but thirty days to conquer
Tel Aviv!"
I wasn't too sure of this, but I said insh'allah anyway.
I MEET THE PATRIARCH
IN THE midst of this growing turmoil, I had a personal prob-
lem. If, despite Moustafa's confidence in Allah, the forces of
war should turn against us, what would I do with my suitcase,
packed with my precious notes and the invaluable film record
of my experiences so far? My suitcase was stored in our arsenal,
where my bloodthirsty friend kept vigil; if the Jews forced us
to flee, it would be lost. I decided the safest place for it would
be the Van!:, the Armenian monastery in the Old City, which
was built like a fortress, and whose sanctity had always been
respected.
One morning, therefore, I trudged over with it, gave it
into the keeping of an Armenian family, and took the op-
portunity to pay my respects to the Patriarch, spiritual shep-
herd of some ten thousand Armenians in Palestine. I was
ushered up a narrow flight of steps to his reception-room. It
was large, rectangular, thickly carpeted, lined with upholstered
chairs. On the walls were stately paintings and photographs of
the princes of my church. Here one seemed to rise above the
tumult outside and step into a calm and reverential world.
I faced Guregh II Israelian. He was a short man, wearing
gold-rimmed glasses, with a long, patriarchal beard that was
black in the upper portion, graying toward the tip, and com-
With the Arabs in Jerusalem 237
pletely white at the end. A large, pyramid-shaped black hood
rose above his head, and at times seemed to overshadow him.
It magnified both his face and stature, so that even while sit-
ting he seemed a towering figure. His deep brown eyes, seem-
ingly calm, glowed with dormant fire. Beloved by Jew, Arab,
and Christian alike, he was one of the last of the old-time
shepherds of the Church who guarded his flock with a pa-
ternal hand.
I bent over and kissed his hand, told him who I was, and
explained that I had brought my suitcase to the monastery
for safe-keeping.
"Parov yegar, dughas. Welcome, my son," he said. "You
come at a bad time. It is a time of tragedy and bloodshed."
"I hope it will come to an end soon, Your Beatitude," I
said.
He shook his head. "Passions are too deep, and the peace-
makers . . . they talk, but do little else. Why could not
Jerusalem have been spared? Why could not war have been
kept away from the Holy City? Our properties outside the
Old City are destroyed or seized; the income to support our
church, our monastery, school, library, and the Armenian
refugees who are streaming into the Varik 7 has been stopped.
What are we to do? . . . Nobody knows what will happen
after the British leave. We can only wait and pray."
An attendant brought in a tray of oriental candy and demi-
tasse, and placed it on a mother-of-pearl table before me.
I heard a sudden commotion outside the door. A scout
rushed in, breathless: a group of Arabs were trying to force
their way into the monastery! Hurrying with the Patriarch to
the window, we saw the Arab gang milling about the en-
trance, wild disorderly hoodlums armed to the bursting point.
They were banging away at the iron door of the monastery
with their rifles, screaming to be allowed entrance.
"They say they will shoot their way in," the scout reported.
"Asdvadzim, Asdvadzim/" My God, my God!" The Patri-
arch raised his hands in supplication. "Assor vertchu tchilca?
238 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
Amen on, Amen orr gookan/" Is there no end to this? Every
day, every day they come!"
I heard the crack of a rifle shot, another, then a third. The
Arabs were attempting to shoot out the lock.
From the posture of supplication, his arms raised heaven-
ward, the Patriarch suddenly brought his hands together. He
clenched them tight into two massive fists, then in a mighty
rage of wrath he shook his fists at the hoodlums. And in that
act of defiance he symbolized the defiance of the entire
Armenian people toward the brutality of the Turk, the tyranny
of the Nazis, the intrigues and betrayal of those who regarded
us as weak and spineless because we were not of the Anglo-
Saxon race and did not sit in the councils of the chosen. In the
Patriarch I saw an Armenian people fighting its oppressors, its
betrayers, it tormenters.
The Patriarch was no longer the disturbed cleric of a few
minutes ago. He was a fighting man, in full command, the
leader of his people, the guardian of his church. He wheeled
around to the scout: "Go tell them that I forbid anybody to
enter. They may try to shoot down the door if they wish, but
as long as I am here they will not desecrate our holy VanJc,
they will not spill Armenian blood. They will not enter/"
I have seldom seen anyone, let alone a Patriarch, so en-
raged. There was little for me to do but stand by, fascinated,
and watch the bolt of lightning smite the Arab. How could
one help but admire this man of courage and fortitude? Surely
our commanders at Musa Dagh must have been fighters of
equal rank. . . . The storm was over. Into the palatial re-
ception room there came again the calm of a sanctuary. "It's
the lawless brigands who are the troublemakers," the Patri-
arch said to me. "The decent Arabs fear them, and that is one
reason why most of them have fled from Jerusalem. If I let in
one, a hundred will follow, then a thousand. They would
plunder our Vank. . . ."
On that bitter note, I left him and returned to Deir
Aboutor.
With the Arabs in Jerusalem 239
LAST DAYS OF THE MANDATE
ONLY a few days now remained until the British mandate
over Palestine expired. Tension had reached the exploding
point The United Nations Trusteeship Council showed
marked impotence. First, it proposed a truce, which neither
side obeyed. Then it tried to postpone partition. There was a
proposal to send United States Marines to enforce no one
was sure what. The Council suggested a special British High
Commissioner to rule over Jerusalem. Later it thought a Red
Cross official might do better. A dozen last-minute schemes
and a hundred speeches were delivered in an atmosphere of
great theatrical importance but far removed from the reality
in Palestine.
At Lake Success, Sir Alexander Cadogan, the British dele-
gate, read a telegram to the Security Council stating that "all
units of the Arab Legion had left Palestine for Trans-Jordan
prior to the end of the Mandate/' I smiled when I read this.
For I had seen the Arab Legion in Gaza, in Hebron and in
Katamon.
Far better than I, the defenders of Kfar Etzion had tasted
the sting of Legion guns. They, too, knew the truth. . . . For
weeks these settlers in their hilltop kibbutzim had beaten back
assaults by the Arab Legion and guerrilla bands. At four a.m.
on May 12 two days before the Mandate's end guerrillas
joined with Arabs from Hebron and the Arab Legion to launch
an all-out attack on Kfar Etzion with two battalions and two
thousand irregulars. They hammered at the isolated com-
munity and its 164 men and women defenders, with cannon,
mortars, and heavy machine-guns. The tanks charged sixteen
times, followed by wave after wave of howling fanatics. Kfar
Etzion sent desperate calls: "Tanks penetrated our rear into
the farmyard. . . . Overrunning the dining-room and chil-
dren's house. . . . Swarming in from all sides." Ferocious
240 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
hand-to-hand fighting followed. When Kfar Etzion fell, the
Arabs found sixty-two dead, forty-two gravely wounded, and
three survivors. The rest had fled to the three adjoining kib-
butzim making a combined defensive force of about 350
Jews.
In the next few days these kibbutzim, too, underwent Kfar
Etzion's fate. After their surrender they were plundered and
burned. Thus ended the tragic saga of Kfar Etzion,, the first
major triumph of the British-trained, British-armed, British-
led, so-called Arab Legion while at Lake Success and in
London, British spokesmen soberly repeated that the English
and the Legion had pulled out of Palestine.
On the night of May 13, the last night of the British
mandate the night before the Jews would proclaim the estab-
lishment of the first independent Jewish State in two thou-
sand years I stood watching the burning buildings of Kfar
Etzion glowering against the sky. The ravished settlement was
symbolic of the Holy Land, a Holy City set afire by the torches
of colonialism. I watched far into the night, then went down-
stairs and prepared for bed. Moustafa and I slept on adjoining
cots. I lay on my cot. Moustafa was removing his jacket.
"I feel suddenly frightened, Moustafa. I cannot explain
why/'
"It is because you are afraid of the future. You will see that
the Arabs will win. Allah is on our side/'
"Do you still believe what you said about Tel Aviv?"
"Of course. Every Arab believes it. Every Arab knows that
we will be in Tel Aviv one month from tomorrow. We will sit
in the caf6s by the sea, drink coffee ... eat bafclawa and
enjoy the Jewish girls!"
"And hang all the Haganah from the trees?"
"Yes, I am sure of it."
He paused for a moment, and grew confidential.
"Artour, I can now tell you our big plans, since they are not
secret any more. The Egyptian armies have already crossed
With the Arabs in Jerusalem 241
into Palestine, and beginning tomorrow will march on Jerusa-
lem and on Tel Aviv. The Arab Legion will march on Tel
Aviv from the east and meet the Egyptians coming from the
south. The Syrians and Lebanese armies will attack from the
north and northwest, and march on Tel Aviv also. The Iraqi
regulars will support the Syrians and Arab Legion. You can
see " and here Moustafa, quite excited, drew out a piece of
paper and traced the plan roughly "how the Arabs will come
all together at one time on Tel Aviv! 7 ' He looked at me
triumphantly. "Are you frightened now, Artour?" he said,
blowing out the candle, and thumping into bed.
In the darkness I said: "No, Moustafa, I believe you/'
I lay thinking. We were sleeping in the basement wing of
Osborne House, sheltered from the fire that crisscrossed the
Valley of Hinnom. 3 The shelling continued unbroken, to and
from Zion Hill, David's Tower, Jaffa Gate, and beyond. It was
marked by enormous explosions in the night. A few weeks to
push the lowly Jews into the sea and seize the rich Jewish
booty? Could 650,000 Jews defy the might of forty-five million
Arabs, the massed might of the Arab armies? We were on a
pinnacle of history this night: everywhere last-minute prepa-
rations were being made for tomorrow, the long-awaited day
when hated British rule and the hated Mandate would end;
tomorrow, when David would be smitten by the Arab Goliath.
I thought of the night I walked, rainsoaked, in New York.
It seemed as though that had taken place in another world, in
another time. I had come on this odyssey to learn, to see what
forces were at work. . . . Here, in the Holy Land, where the
Prince of Peace was bom, violence spoke from every stone,
every leaf, every ancient, time-hallowed site. . . ,
And thinking these thoughts, I fell asleep, deaf at last to the
bitter symphony of death played in the City of Peace.
3 It was symbolic as a valley of death. An altar once stood here to Moloch,
the god to whom infants were offered as sacrifice. The Alcadema Field of
Blood was in this valley, as well as the potter's field of ancient days, bought
with the thirty pieces of silver which Judas, in remorse, flung back at the
priests.
BOOK TWO
(CHAPTER XIII)
MEDINAT YfSRAEL IS BORN
"It is because America has such an abundance of
everything that I have come. I shall not be missed.
Here they need me. I have come to help, to build a
new country T
"Many ofmy... friends have died here. I can-
not desert them. . . . Israel, their graveyard, will
become my new home, my country. Every dead
friend I shall try to replace with a living baby."
American Pioneers in Israel
E-M DAY End-of-Mandate Day dawned as lovely a morn-
ing as man could have wanted. Moustafa was stirring. So were
a score of Arabs on cots and mats. I wanted to be with the
Jews on the first day of the new Jewish State to see history
being made in the New City of Jerusalem. All the American
reporters were there; our Consulate was there; and there I
ought to be. It was time for me to take leave of the Arabs
with whom I had shared experiences so long. I took a last look
at Moustafa in the same suit he had lived in and slept in
and fought in. He was anything but handsome, or neat about
himself, but I loved him as a friend. Not for his views but for
what he was: honest, ragged, simple. He had proved himself
staunchly loyal and understanding, and had saved my life time
and again. Should I disclose my pkns? If I did, I knew he'd
stop me. I did not want to fight Moustafa.
246 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
"I'm going to the Armenian quarter in the Old City," I said
casually.
"Come back quickly. There will be heavy fighting. Stay with
me today or you will be killed/' It was just like Moustafa my
great big growling guardian Arab.
Taking my knapsack, I left Deir Aboutor. British sentries
were gone from the Government Printing House, and the no-
man's street by the railway station was utterly deserted and
eerie. It was here that Arabs had often ambushed Jews. The
British post at the entrance to the German colony was de-
serted. Only the sandbags and rusty coils of barbed wire re-
mained. My trouser cuff caught, and I bent down. "What a
perfect mark for a sniper Arab or Jew! I'll never know
which!" flashed through my mind.
I walked up the fine macadam road toward the Public In-
formation Office. The danger was now from the Jews who,
I felt, would shoot at anyone crossing from the Arab side. I
pulled out a small American flag and held it at arm's length,
hoping the Arabs from behind wouldn't be able to see it.
Haganah sentries, after carefully checking my Jewish Agency
pass, allowed me in. I hurried quickly to the Pantiles Pen-
sion, directly opposite the Public Information Office. De-
serted by its owners, the Pantiles had been appropriated by
American and British correspondents as their residence. An
American flag flew over it from a rough flagpole. I located
Carter Davidson, of the Associated Press, who was recognized
as spokesman for the correspondents.
I identified myself and explained that I was getting material
for a book. Could I stay with them?
Davidson was cordial. "Sure, we have room for you. Move
in any time."
I had come at the right moment. A few minutes later, I
climbed with the correspondents into one of three waiting
cars, and off we went to Government House, residence of Sir
Alan Cunningham, British High Commissioner for Palestine.
He was to depart from Palestine today with the last British
Medinat Yisrael Is Born 247
troops. Government House was a solid, austere edifice built of
light-colored stone, with a central tower from which the Un-
ion Jack flew. Quite symbolic, I thought, for Government
House to be situated on the Hill of Evil Counsel. Actually,
Sir Alan was liked, personally and politically. With rare fore-
sight he had tried to mitigate the effects of Ernest Bevin's
harsh policy, but now it had all come to nought.
On the spacious grounds outside Government House we
found the picturesque Highlander Light Infantry, in shorts
and khaki berets topped with a red pompom, lined up in for-
mation. Tanks and armored cars spread out around the palatial
gardens. At exactly eight o'clock Sir Alan emerged, a tall,
handsome man with pink cheeks and gray hair. He reviewed
his guard of honor, made a short speech, chatted informally,
shook hands. The British Broadcasting Company made an on-
the-spot broadcast, recording the end of an adventure that
started bravely thirty years ago. England came humbly then;
General Allenby entered Jerusalem on foot, and won the
thanks of millions of Arabs, Jews, and Christians the world
over for liberating the Holy Land from Turkish rule. Thirty
years of duplicity and disregard for the interests of anyone but
herself had dissipated England's storehouse of good will. In-
stead of leaving now, as a friend, the English were being
kicked out their every departing step cursed by Arab and
Jew.
Sir Alan walked to his car. As the ex-High Commissioner
got into a sleek black Rolls Royce, the Highlander bagpipers
appropriately sealed the Mandate's end by playing a long and
mournful Scottish funeral dirge. The correspondents got into
their cars, and most of them returned to the Pantiles.
"ASDVADZ MEDZ EH"
FIRING broke out on both sides the minute Sir Alan's armed
cavalcade left Jerusalem. By 9.30 a.m. the shooting had be-
24S CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
come alarmingly widespread. It was apparent that neither side
would wait for the Mandate to end officially at midnight, and
that the battle for Jerusalem would begin immediately. Sud-
denly I began cursing myself. What a fool I had been for
taking my suitcase to the Armenian compound! I should have
taken it instead to the American Consulate. It would be far
safer there than in the Old City, which was certain to become
a center of fighting in a matter of moments. Even though the
Vanlc would withstand shelling, I might not be able to get to
my suitcase for heaven knew how long.
Could I, at this stage, cross from the Jewish to the Arab
side? If, by way of the back streets, I reached the monastery
safely, would I have time to return? The scramble for the
seizure of strategic buildings was on. The few blocks that
separated the Jewish- and Arab-held areas were about to be
converted into a bomb-wrecked no-man's land. Literally there
wasn't a second to lose, for once the two sides were locked in
house-to-house combat, not only would it be impossible to
cross in either direction, but even if through a sheer miracle
I succeeded, I'd have been nailed as a spy.
I raced for the Old City. Shops and stores were boarded
everywhere, the corrugated metal covers drawn and locked.
The streets were utterly deserted. I ran through back alleys
where the fighting hadn't yet reached and at last plunged
through Jaffa Gate, one of seven entrances to the Old City.
I fought my way in against the current of shouting Arab sol-
diers streaming out to fight the Haganah.
I arrived breathless before the monastery. Armenian lads in
Boy Scout shorts and trench helmets halted me. They insisted
on reporting me to the Patriarch before letting me in. I argued
that Jaffa Gate might be closed any minute for civilians and I
would never get out. Orders were orders! ... I was ushered
into the Patriarch's presence once more. As he rose to greet
me, I bent down and kissed his ring hurriedly and, I thought,
quite irreverently. He was calm.
"You are welcome to live with us," he said. "We have
Medinat Yisrael Is Bom 249
enough food to feed another mouth, especially from America.
If you don't mind sharing a room, we can put you up. If it
proves too uncomfortable you can make your way to Amman
or Damascus." I thanked him, but insisted that I ought to be
on the Jewish side of Jerusalem with my fellow correspond-
ents. Fd share their fate, I said, whatever it was. The Patriarch
gave me his blessing. I dashed down the stairs, followed by an
Armenian lad.
"Shood ureh, shood ureh," he urged, "Hurry up, Hurry up.
They will begin. The big bombing will begin now/'
We raced over the cobblestones through a labyrinth of
passageways and cell-like rooms built of stone, narrowly miss-
ing Armenians in the alleys. I banged on the door of the house
where I had left my bag. It was locked!
"Ammaaan/ AmmaaanJ Ammaaan/"
This was the standard wailing call of the Near East, which
I had heard throughout my childhood, usually accentuated by
a sidewise swinging of the head and body. I had heard the
lament from my mother, and an ageless aunt at whose knee I
was raised. Now, as a grown man in my thirty-ninth year, I
came out with the lament, Americanizing my agony by in-
terspersing salvo after salvo of Anglo-Saxon oaths. As the
Armenian youth had run off to locate the owners, the family
next door invited me to a cup of coffee.
"Pm in no mood for coffee. I want to get out of here alive/'
"Gaghatchem, soor/ mu humetzek mezzi hedl I beg you.
Please have a cup of coffee with us." It was the woman of the
household.
"Digin, soor/i jamanag tchel Madam, this is no time for
coffee!"
I may as well have been talking to the cobblestones. I was
a stranger from America, and every stranger from America
must be honored with coffee. That's all the woman knew.
"Since you won't honor our home by coming in," she said
triumphantly, "you will have coffee outside our door."
Soon her daughter emerged with a tray of coffee and orien-
250 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
tal candy. Simultaneously the Armenian lad appeared around
the corner, waving a huge key, followed by an old woman with
a crinkled face. My suitcase had been entrusted to her by the
family I had left it with, who had since fled to Beirut. I found
my suitcase under the bed, beneath a pile of blankets. I dashed
out.
"Gaghatchem, soor/ mu. . . /' Now it was the old lady
who offered me coffee!
Back to Jaffa Gate we raced! The Armenian youth ex-
plained to the guards that I was an American who had to get
to the Consulate immediately. The Arabs, rifles in hand, re-
fused to budge. The Armenian turned to me:
"They are saying that the fighting has already begun. You
will be shot. Both by Arabs and by Jews. You will be drilled
with holes on both sides of your body. Your body will lie ex-
posed and no one will venture to get it for burial. I think they
are right/'
"Please tell them if my hour has come I shall know it very
soon. If it has not, I shall emerge alive."
The Arabs understood, for this was the philosophy of Ori-
ental fatalism. They stood aside, and I dashed out, with my
suitcase as a shield. It is odd how in moments of stress one
reverts to the experiences of childhood. I recall that in mo-
ments of great anxiety Mother used to say: "Asdvadz medz
eh. Anor tzukeh. God is merciful. Trust in Him/'
"Asdvadz medz eh/" There was absolutely no one else you
could appeal to at such a moment. I kept repeating the phrase,
while dodging, ducking, crawling across ruined streets and
back alleys, a hail of bullets resounding all around me and
dragging the infernal suitcase containing, among other things,
most of the cash I had brought! I reached Julian's Way, the
lower end of which was in the heart of the battle area. It had
to be crossed. I did not know whether Jewish or Arab machine-
guns controlled it, but that detail was immaterial as I rested
for a minute, then dashed wildly across the upper end of the
street, into a doorway. I crawled from door to door until I
Medinat Yisrael Is Born 251
reached the safety of the YMCA a block from the Pantiles
Hotel. Asdvadz medz eh. Mother was right.
HIDE AND SEEK WITH BULLETS
BACK in the Pantiles, I found Jim Fitzsimmons, Associated
Press photographer, swearing furiously.
"When you guys left Government House I stayed behind
to take pictures of the British flag being lowered. I was driving
back like mad, trying to get my films on the last mail plane
out of Jerusalem, when the Arabs stopped my jeep at Damascus
Gate. I told them I was in a helluva hurry, but they just put
their guns at my head and told me to get out. I was surrounded
by them, every last sonovabitch armed to the teeth. If any of
them had yelled Yahoodi, I would have been lynched. They
drove off in my jeep. I guess it was luck when Major Androno-
vich * from the Consulate picked me up in his car. Here I am
without a jeep!"
The battle for key buildings was raging furiously. The in-
stant the last British troops left at ten a.m. pale-blue-and-
white Jewish flags replaced Union Jacks on every building in
the Jewish zone. Jewish storm troopers dashed out from build-
ings where they had been hiding and, in some instances,
sleeping for the last twenty-four hours. With astonishing co-
ordination and phenomenal speed they captured building
after building in the strategic no-man's land area, known as
the "Bevingrad" zone ironically named for Bevin, because
British officialdom living here had barricaded itself during the
last weeks of the Mandate behind cement pillboxes and
barbed wire. The Arabs were now being driven back relent-
lessly, building by building, to the Old City walls. One mar-
veled at the speed and ferocity with which the Jews unleashed
their attack.
1 Major Nicholas Andronovich, United States military liaison officer.
252 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
The fighting hadn't yet reached the Pantiles area, although
the Public Information Office building across the street was
already occupied by Haganah youth in rumpled khaki, dunga-
rees, and makeshift remains of British uniforms. Most were
in their late teens, lean, wiry, agile as wildcats. Moustafa and
the boys of Deir Aboutor kept up a dangerous sniper and
machine-gun fire, but the Haganah chose not to waste its am-
munition. I decided to see what was happening at the YMCA.
When I reached it, by a circuitous route, it was like a morgue.
Some of those taking refuge there were Moslem Arabs, but
most were Armenians and Christian Arabs perhaps eighty
persons in all. One forlorn Armenian was a priest from our
monastery, named Reverend Haigaser Donigian. Foolishly he
had waited till the last moment to embark for Haifa, to re-
place the priest there.
"I can get neither to Haifa, nor back to the Old City. I'm
stranded," he said, dejected.
"It is dangerous, but I think I can lead you most of the
way to the Old City by the back streets/' I volunteered. "Let's
hurry!"
Cautiously we ventured out, and peered from behind a
building. Julian's Way, the street on which the "Y" fronted,
was absolutely deserted; with no firing at the moment, it was
a silent no-man's land littered with roadblocks and barbed
wire, obviously in Jewish hands. Across the street was a Shell
gas station. From its direction appeared two French police-
men in metal helmets, guards at the French Consulate. They
peered down Julian's Way.
"If they make it," I said to the priest, "we will try it, too/'
The French crossed without mishap. Reverend Donigian
and I walked down Julian's Way quite nonchalantly, chatting.
With the suddenness of a thunderbolt, lightning seemed to
strike all around us. There were flashes, accompanied by ter-
rific, ear-splitting claps of thunder. Machine-gun bullets rico-
cheted from the sidewalk scarcely ten feet to our right. I had
no idea of Father Donigian's reactions. It was every man for
Medinat Yisrael Is Born 253
himself. I dashed to the nearest wall and found refuge in the
fagade of a store. The bullets continued their terrifying ratatat
of death. A determined machine-gunner could have riddled
my left side, for my body protruded from the shallow shelter.
Then the machine gun stopped, and there was the silence of a
murder chamber.
"Father, where are you? Are you alive?"
"Are you alive? I'm here/'
I peered out slightly, and in the doorway of an adjoining
shop I saw the tip of his Armenian nose.
"The Jews shouldn't have done this to us/' I said.
"Maybe they thought we were Arabs," Father Donigian an-
swered.
We waited there, squeezed against the building, each hold-
ing on to a suitcase. "How long are we going to stay like this?"
"I shall make a run for it," the priest said.
"Let me try it first. You can follow."
"I'll go first," he insisted. I heard him muttering, and recog-
nized the words Asdvadz, Asdvadz. Then I heard a final
"Amen!" At the same instant his black-clothed figure darted
from the doorway and scampered with astonishing speed to
the corner, around which he disappeared to safety. I felt
trapped. If the Jewish gunner took us for Arabs, he had by
now trained his gun on my hiding-place. The priest's sudden
dash had caught him off guard, but he could guess that the
second "Arab" would have to make a run for it soon. Was he
now covering me with his gun? There was only one way to
find out. ... I was too excited even to pray.
I dashed out, clutching the bkck suitcase. The corner
seemed far away, so I jumped into the first opening I saw.
I was before a big iron gate, covered with trailing roses. I
picked one quickly, and added it to my collection of dried
flowers which I kept in my passport. Then I scrambled over
the gate, no easy task because of the thorns and found my-
self inside a garden, surrounded by a wall. I negotiated this,
too, and as I jumped down I became aware of figures in a
254 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
doorway. Instinctively I put the suitcase in front of me. Then
I laughed, for I was facing the two French police cowering in
their refuge.
"Mon Dieu/ My God! What kind of a war is this? 7 '
A few minutes later I was at the "Y." Father Donigian was
waiting there a disconsolate figure resigned to the life of a
priest marooned for the duration.
"You might as well stay here," I said. "You'll be better off
here than any of us in the New City. At least you'll eat well,
and the Arabs won't dare bomb the T/ "
I was partly right. The YMCA was built like a fortress, and
had been declared an international security zone, operated by
the International Committee of the Red Cross. It was also
the residence of the four-power United Nations Palestine
Conciliation Commission. Despite its neutral position, how-
ever, it was struck by numerous bombs from the Arab side.
Few caused permanent damage. None of its refugees were
killed or injured. The "Y" was better stocked than any of the
Jewish institutions, but the food was doled out carefully,
served only to YMCA personnel, the refugees, and United
Nations and Red Cross officials.
I walked out feeling lonesome. I knew hardly any Jews, and
had only just met the correspondents at the Pantiles. I missed
Moustafa and the friendship of my Arab cronies. The average
Arab is an extremely sociable human being, capable of great
charm and lasting friendship. "I wish I had made a Zionist
out of Moustafa," I thought. "The Jews would have gained a
fine ally." I walked through the spacious gardens, a haven
filled with roses and luxuriant flowers, and after walking down
an adjoining street, I leaned against a square column, of
masonry, marking the boundary of the Armenian Church of
the Nazarene, and looked down Julian's Way in the direction
of the Jewish machine-gunners.
So suddenly that I gasped for breath, a bullet shattered
against the masonry scarcely two feet from my nose. I spun
Medinat Yisrael Is Born 255
around and vaulted to safety. This sniper, I discovered later,
was an Arab firing from the Old City wall.
With enough adventure to last me for one day, I walked to
the center of the New City. Foreign flags including the yellow
and white colors of the Vatican state were displayed over
church buildings, schools, hospitals, consulates, and even pri-
vate homes as signs of neutrality. Israel flags were everywhere.
A few of the shops were decorated with blue-and-white bunt-
ing draped over rough Stars of David. Photographs of Zionist
leaders were wreathed in the Jewish colors. But there were no
parades; no demonstrations; no firing of guns except on the
battlefronts. The streets were almost deserted, except for
armed Haganah vehicles and civilians scurrying about. There
were no children in downtown Jerusalem. There was posi-
tively no jubilance as one might have expected after the long
wait for liberation since A.D. 70. Jerusalem was solemn and,
except for the fighting fronts, in a state akin to stupor, refusing
to believe that the British had left, and that Israel was about
to become independent and free for the first time in 1,900
years!
The Jewish Agency Building was like a beehive. Middle-
aged men with armbands and Sten guns clumsily though care-
fully interrogated each incoming and departing visitor. On a
shop window in Ben Yehuda Street in the heart of the Jewish
business section, posters warned against wasting water, spread-
ing rumors, and being on streets unnecessarily. Everywhere on
walls were death notices.
Through Zion Square the Times Square of the New City
moved a hurried stream of traffic toward the front only a
few hundred yards away. Paunchy men raced about in an out-
fit of khaki shorts, summer shirt, British army beret, a police
billy, a rifle, whistle, and Sten gun. The armament simply did
not become the gray-haired businessman turned soldier. Of
such men called Mishmar Haam, civil guard the bulk of
the army of Israel was composed behind the front lines. I
256 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
moved on, hugging walls when I could, and racing across open
spaces. I passed a movie house the Orion Cinema. The last
film it had shown was Something to Sing About, with James
Cagney. The poster was still up in English and Hebrew. Re-
tracing my steps to the Pantiles, I peeked through a slit in the
concrete wall built along the street as partial protection from
snipers and bombs. Jerusalem looked placid from this height,
but bloody hand-to-hand fighting was in progress in the streets
below, while from the hills beyond them twenty-five-pound
bombs were being lobbed into the New City.
A mortar shell had landed in front of Terra Sancta College,
maintained by Franciscan monks not far from the Pantiles,
and had ripped up the sidewalk, I paused to inspect it and
photograph a small British flag thrown into the shell crater.
Trampled Union Jacks were strewn over the streets and tan-
gled in the coils of rusted barbed wire flags that but a few
hours ago were symbols of the law of the land.
MEDINATTISRAEL
SINCE the Mandate ended officially at midnight, May 14,
tomorrow, the 15th of May, was the proper day to proclaim
the birth of Medfinat Yisrael, the State of Israel. But the 15th
was Saturday Shabbat and the rabbis would allow no trans-
action of official business, historic though it was and awaited
for nineteen centuries. So, at four o'clock in the afternoon,
before Shabbat began at sundown, David Ben-Gurion, till
then chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive Committee,
now prime-minister-to-be, made a simple and moving- an-
nouncement from the Museum Hall in Tel Aviv:
. . . Pursuant to the decision of the U.N., and based on our
historic and national rights, we hereby declare the establish-
ment of the Jewish State. . . The State of Israel will open
its gates to immigration of Jews from all lands. It will strive
Medinat Yisrael Is Born 257
to develop the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants, in
accordance with the social ideals of our Prophets.
We declare that full civil and political liberty will be en-
joyed by all citizens, regardless of religion, race or sex. There
will be full freedom of religion, culture and language. We
declare that we shall safeguard the Holy Places of all religions
within the area of the State of Israel. . . .
Even at this hour of bloodshed, we call upon the Arabs of
Palestine to restore peace in this country. We call upon the
Arab citizens to return to their homes. We assure them full
civic rights on the basis of full representation in all govern-
mental organs of the State. We are extending the hand of
friendship to the neighboring Arab States in order to initiate
mutual co-operation. We are ready to contribute our share to
the revival of the Middle East. . . .
The assembly at the Museum Hall sang Hatikvah, the Jew-
ish national anthem. The ceremonies were broadcast, but few
in Jerusalem heard them, because there was no electricity and
little time could be spared from the work of offense and de-
fense. From the zone below "Bevingrad" the fighting con-
tinued. The Arab was pushed nearer, ever nearer to Jaffa Gate,
as the Jew the once beaten, bullied Jew of old outfought,
outmaneuvered, outwitted the Arab Goliath, on the eve of the
First Day of Independence, and on the eve of this Shabbat,
the fifth day of the month of lyar, the year 5708 by the He-
brew calendar.
I mused on the conversations I had had with Americans of
Jewish faith who had settled in Jerusalem. I had asked each
why he had left the comfort of our country to face pioneer
hardships and even death.
"It is because America has such an abundance of every-
thing that I have come. I shall not be missed. Here they need
me. I have come to help, to build a new country," one said.
Another, from Chicago, replied: "There are places in Amer-
258 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
ica where Jews, Negroes, and dogs are not wanted, where anti-
Semitism, discrimination, and race hatred still rule. Here we
are men. We are fighters. What the Nazis did to us no one
can do to us here. Israel is our new home the home of those
unwanted because they are Jews/'
Miriam from Boro Park, Brooklyn, said to me: "I came
eight months ago to get my doctorate in sociology at Hebrew
University. One day my friend Moshe was killed cut to
pieces, and his body burned. Another day they brought a
bloodsoaked body to the hospital. It was my fiance. Many of
my other friends have died here. I cannot desert them. I shall
stay to take their place. Israel, their graveyard, will become
my new home, my country. Every dead friend I shall try to
replace with a living baby/'
A decorated ex-GI gave this answer: "If the German bullet
had come four inches nearer my heart I'd have been dead
now. I fought for Uncle Sam because I believed in democracy.
I am fighting now because I believe in democracy for my peo-
ple. What is the difference where you fight for these things?
Since I was born a Jew what is more natural than to fight for
my convictions here?"
They fought the ex-GI, Miriam, the young man from
Chicago with hundreds like them from all parts of the
world. They spoke in a babel of accents but they spoke in
the one language of freedom. Many died in this Jewish Revo-
lution of 1948 in order that democracy might live where de-
mocracy had not existed since the Creation. Thus was Medinat
Yisrael watered by the blood of many Jews and some Chris-
tian and Arab allies from many lands, and built upon the
sacrificial offering of the body so that the flock of Israel might
live in the sovereign dignity of humankind, for the first time
in 1,900 years since Titus, the Roman tyrant, destroyed the
Temple in A.D. 70!
All this was foretold in the Bible at least four thousand
years before the Palestine Arabs fled from the land they had
"made desolate/'
Medinat Yisrael Is Born 259
And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you
a God: and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God 7 which
bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which
I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and
I will give it to you for an heritage. . . , 2
Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trod-
den my portion under foot. . . . the whole land is made
desolate, because no man layeth it to heart. . . . They have
sown wheat, but shall reap thorns: they have put themselves
to pain, but shall not profit. . . .
Thus saith the Lord against all mine evil neighbors, that
touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel
to inherit. , . . 3
2 Exodus vi.
3 Jeremiah xii.
(CHAPTER XIV)
LIFE IN THE BESIEGED CITY
"Portziml You stand before the walls of Jerusalem.
For 1,900 years no Jew has climbed them. Tonight
you will mount them?
Jewish Commander to His Men
FROM the moment of birth begins man's struggle against
death. So with the ancient capital of the newborn State of
Israel.
What a radiant and hellish Shabbat morning, this first day
of the first year of the first Jewish State in nearly twenty cen-
turies! Would it be an augury of the future? The Arabs
greeted the new State by sending over shells, salvo after salvo,
beginning at dawn, continuing through the day and into the
long night, and for many days, nights, and weeks thereafter.
They fell everywhere, all the time making a low, whirring,
rolling, hollow, distant thunder audible for an instant before
the shell crashed, killing the soldier, the innocent, the old, and
the young. . . . These weren't the French guns of Fawzy
Bey el Kawoukjy, commander of the Arab Army of Libera-
tion, because those barrels could never have stood the pace.
These were modern, rapid-firing guns.
Whose?
The barrage seemed directed to the eastern sector of the
New City, toward which I now walked, hugging the walls on
Life in the Besieged City 261
the east and south sides of the street, for the bombs seemed
to prefer the west and north sides. Stray bullets, however,
came from all directions. I toured the hospitals. St. Joseph's
Convent, operated by French nuns, and once a school for six
hundred Arab girls (who since had fled with their parents)
had been converted into a hospital by Hadassah x and the
Jews spoke with gratitude of their co-operation. Near by was
the former English mission hospital now used as an emer-
gency clinic. As soon as an ambulance arrived, a corps of at-
tendants with stretchers rushed to meet it. Then began the
grisly parade: bodies covered with sheets were carried direct
to the morgue; those with bloodsoaked clothing were rushed
to the operating-room. On one stretcher I saw a boy of per-
haps eleven, with a shock of thick black hair and olive skin.
His large brown eyes were open. His right arm and side were
soaked in blood, and the stretcher was crimson.
He was the image of a little boy I knew back home, and I
became attached to him.
"He's badly hurt, but he isn't crying/' I said to a nurse.
"He is too shocked to feel pain. Sometimes/' she added,
"they don't come out of shock. . . . We bury about thirty
people a day from this hospital."
They took the boy to the operating-room. For the next
hour I looked for him in the crowded wards. Finally they
brought him out. The color had left his face. His brown eyes
were closed. He was whimpering, still under the anesthesia.
They laid him on a bed that had been used, the sheeting
soiled. (Two patients were often placed in one bed.) Gently
the nurse rolled him over on his left side, and I saw that his
arm was gone. In its place was a thick, round bandaged stump.
1 Jerusalem's hospitals were financed mainly by Hadassah, the Women's
Zionist Organization of America. They were equipped with American supplies
and technical apparatus. The extreme efficiency of the hospital staffs and the
rapid ambulance service from the fighting fronts kept Jewish fatalities to a
minimum. On the other hand, many Arab casualties were due to woefully in-
adequate facilities. The use of plasma, for example, was rare among the Arabs,
but commonplace among the Jews.
262 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
He lay quietly on his side, consumed by fever and pain. I
moved closer to take his picture, and I heard him cry softly:
"Ima . . . Ima . . . Ima" the plaintive cry of a boy for his
mother. I took five photographs, and a strange thing hap-
pened with them. All came out blurred. It was I who had
moved. I must have been too moved to hold still. Moved and
angry. Angry is not the word. Enraged is more apt. Enraged
that a boy of eleven should have to go through life without his
right arm. What had he done? Whom had he hurt?
Above the groaning in the wards I heard another Arab
shell land near by. It struck near St. Joseph's Convent, whose
upper floors were later damaged by shells. I ascertained that
the shelling came from a hilltop a quarter of a mile beyond
the Garden of Gethsemane. The guns were British guns. 2 The
shells bore British markings. The hands firing the artillery
were those of the Arab Legion British trained. The concep-
tion of terrorizing the New City with indiscriminate round-
the-clock bombing was British-inspired. It was planned by
Glubb Pasha, British commander of the Arab Legion. The
beleaguered Jews were fighting not only the Arabs, but, in ef-
fect, the English as well. Not Arab shrapnel, but actually an
English-made, English-directed shell-splinter had smashed
that boy's arm. The cruelty of it, and the unfairness of blam-
ing only the Arabs for a policy instigated by His Majesty's
Government! The voice was Jacob's but the hands were those
of Esau!
I fled into the street. A group of children were playing with
cartridge shells near a cellar doorway. A bearded old man in a
crumpled black suit was pasting new death notices on the
walls of a building. I passed the Nathan Straus Health Center,
where many Arabs used to come for free treatment. Signs in
English, Arabic, and Hebrew said: "For all Races and Creeds."
The memory of the boy haunted me: Ima, Ima, Ima/
2 On my way to Jericho some time later, I drove past the Garden of
Gethsemane, and saw these British guns firing from their emplacements on a
promontory on the Mount of Offence.
Life in the Besieged City 263
I decided to take a stealthy walk toward the fighting front.
A member of the mishmar haam soon stopped me. He was a
pale, bookish-looking, elderly man. With a businesslike mo-
tion of his billy he waved me back. Half-trucks loaded with
reinforcements, and vehicles completely enclosed with armor,
dome-shaped at the top, rumbled by. Ambulances marked
with the Mogen David Adorn (Red Shield of David) tore
through the streets, while the Arab cannonading continued its
terrifying staccato. I watched from a doorway, then hurried
up the ruined block of Ben Yehuda street, past the high con-
crete wall, the Jewish Agency Building, and down King
George avenue, to the Pantiles.
THE PANTILES HOME AND REFUGE
OUR home was a solid structure, handsome by Palestinian
standards, built of cream-colored stone. Most of the New City
was built of this durable rock, making homes impregnable ex-
cept to direct bomb hits. Otherwise the New City would
never have survived its terrific bombardment. The Pantiles's
front balconies overlooked the Old City and the Yemin
Moshe defense area. Another balcony looked upon the Public
Information Office and Deir Aboutor, where I assumed Mou-
stafa and the boys were still fighting. Located near the edge
of no-man's land, the Pantiles was as "neutral" as any spot
in Jerusalem could be.
Carter Davidson had wisely anticipated a long siege, but
being a journalist and not a housekeeper, he had only stocked
up mainly with American Spam, Argentine bully beef, salty
English cheese, and canned salmon of unknown pedigree.
Salmon, bully beef, and Spam; Spam, bully beef, and salmon,
became our constant diet after the cheese, little meat, flour,
and eggs gave out. We also had a store of beer. Always being
one who preferred solid to liquid nourishment, the beer did
me no particular good. To the others it was an elixir.
264 CAIKO TO DAMASCUS
Carter had provided cooks, kitchen help, housekeepers, and
waiters. We were not sure who was what, but two Arab youths
and an Armenian girl named Mary served us in those capaci-
ties. Our Arab help had no idea of sanitation. A dozen raven-
ous cats soon discovered our premises, and we had to place
rocks on the garbage cans. Mary was in her early twenties, an
attractive girl with large brown eyes, light skin, and a figure
sufficiently shapely to cause muffled whistling. But Mary's per-
sonality soon squashed any romantic notions. She had had a
violent love affair with an English officer, and had begged him
to take her away. He had left her in the lurch, and she was
undergoing a pronounced anti-male period. She refused to
speak Armenian with me, and said she was ashamed to have
been born one because her parents were so narrow-minded.
We let her alone. On the night of this first Shabbat, despite
the fact that the electricity had been turned off and she had
to work by the light of a kerosene lamp, Mary prepared a de-
licious supper. She baked a pie and served it with American
coffee luxuries that were to disappear soon. Including Carter
Davidson and myself, there were fourteen of us at the table:
Jim Fitzsimmons, Associated Press photographer, a red-
faced, hard-working extrovert; Tom Pringle, the third member
of the AP team, adventurous and fearless; Dana Schmidt,
veteran New York Times correspondent, lean, studious, a bit
austere until one learned to know him; Kenneth Bilby of the
New Yori: Herald-Tribune, a former Army colonel, who was
always kindly, quiet-mannered, and well-liked; Bob Martin of
the New York Post, bluff, hearty, a good Samaritan; Cornell
Acheson of the Indianapolis News, reticent, self-contained;
Robert Hecox, Paramount News cameraman, tall, handsome
and moody; Al Noderer, chubby, hard-working reporter for
the Chicago Tribune; John Calder, pleasant and likable, the
Reuters correspondent; and James Hayes of Kemsley News-
papers, Ltd., whom I thought arrogant and overbearing a
dachshund kept him company. Hore and Claire Hollings-
worth were correspondents for London newspapers. He was
Life in the Besieged City 265
tall, cold, hard, uncommunicative; she thin, parched, blood-
less, mannish. They later retired to well-stocked St. George's
Cathedral. I was disappointed that Hayes did not offer to go
along with his dachshund.
After supper the fourteen of us sat around the table and
drank beer under the light of the kerosene lamp. The meal
had been a quiet one. It wasn't the grimness of the siege
which made us subdued. The boys were serious, absorbed in
their work. Despite their youth (most of them looked older
than their years) they had been sobered by experience. All,
that is, except Jim Fitzsimmons and Tom Pringle, the first
full of spirit, the second full of mischief. For my part, I've
rarely been talkative in company, preferring to be a listener.
I did not work as these boys did. I was gathering material and
storing it away tor future, not immediate use.
The boys were already frustrated because they could not get
their dispatches out to their newspapers. The British had
taken the only transmitter in Jerusalem. No reports got
through to the outer world, despite frantic efforts. The world's
most sensational story lay buried, causing untold anguish
among the reporters. Only Arab-slanted news was allowed to
leave Amman, the capital of Jordan, some sixty miles distant
There was little we could do. After the beer, some of us went
to our rooms, and others to the roof to watch the fighting be-
tween the Old and the New City. It was still concentrated
around Jaffa Gate, but tracers flew everywhere, and shells
were crashing everywhere. We watched the murderous show
quietly, seeking cover whenever a shell crashed uncomfortably
close.
Sometime after midnight the last of us left the Pantiles
roof, bid one another good night, and retired to our rooms.
Being a newcomer, I had a back room, actually one of the
safest at this time because it did not face the fighting. Dana
Schmidt and John Calder had front balcony suites. They
moved their cot to the hallway, placed the mattress on the
floor, and slept under the bed, behind the double security of
266 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
an added wall and the bedsprings. Amid the world's most
concentrated and historic excitement, the lot of us, somewhat
bored, snuffed out our candles and crawled into bed. Outside,
the new State of Israel, the Arabs, and the British slugged it
out in blood on the first night of Israel's independence.
SUNDAY AT TERRA SANCTA
SUNDAY morning was even more radiant than the Shabbat
and even more frightful! The British Broadcasting Com-
pany had reported "restrained joyfulness" in Egypt. "This is
like the Crusades all over again. Only this time the Arabs have
gone out to save the Holy Land," it said. Cairo boasted: "This
war will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre
which will be spoken of like the Mongol massacres and the
Crusades."
Tel Aviv had been bombed by Egyptian planes, and Egyp-
tian and Arab Legion forces were marching upon both Tel
Aviv and Jerusalem, bound on their mission of "extermina-
tion and momentous massacre/' The Jewish sector of the Old
City, which had survived for centuries, had a night of terror
as Arab gangs attacked its few hundred Haganah fighters, who
defended some two thousand civilians, most of whom were
elderly orthodox men and women who had refused to leave
their homes.
Dressed in a fresh shirt, I walked to Terra Sancta College.
A Franciscan monk opened the door and ushered me into a
chapel far removed from the hatreds of man. I was alone.
Fresh-cut flowers graced the simple altar. On my left an oil
lamp burned. The stained glass behind the altar was radiant
with living images of His disciples. In a niche was a statue of
the young Jesus, surrounded with flowers. In this chapel I saw
no pomp, no pageantry, no gaudy display of gold, silver, brass,
or foil. There was nothing here to befog direct communion
Life in the Besieged City 267
with one's God. This was Terra Sancta holy ground. God
was here in all His glory. In this sanctuary I found beauty and
calm such as I had not felt since Palm Sunday in the Arme-
nian Church in Cairo. Whether I prayed formally or not, or
what I said if I did pray, I do not recall. It is likely that I said
nothing, for I was too deeply awed with His unmistakable
presence to desecrate it with my words. Nor do I recall how
long I remained thus, wondrously moved. It must have been
a long time, because the chapel grew light as the sun climbed
to its zenith, bathing the pews, altar, and the niche with the
young Jesus in dazzling radiance and splendor.
I walked out and found myself in a large garden. A Jewish
woman was drawing her bucket from the well. I was jolted out
of my peaceful trance by the thunderous sound of gunfire. I
was in the "Holy City/ 7 being torn asunder on the holy day.
In the garden I met another Terra Sancta priest. Two more
came: handsome, youthful, vigorous men. They told me that
the college had once had more than five hundred pupils, fifty
of them Jewish; that it had been one of the leading institu-
tions in the Middle East. Father Terrence Quehn was prin-
cipal. On a later visit I photographed a shattered window-
frame against which an Arab bomb had crashed obliquely,
miraculously missing the interior.
BEHIND THE BARRICADES
WALKING down King George avenue I noticed that one
of the deserted buildings had been occupied during the night.
It was barricaded with sandbags. A youth in a woolen stocking-
cap was leaning from the roof. I shouted up at him.
"Hello! Fm a neighbor from the Pantiles. May I visit you?"
"Who are you?"
"American correspondent"
"Wait. We come down for you."
268 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
We climbed to the roof. Cozy sandbag shelters had been
erected and a canopy furnished shade for the half dozen young
men and two Haganah girls both buxom, and pleasing to
the eye. One was dressed in khaki trousers, the other in shorts.
The latter, who had just turned eighteen, was married to the
dark, curly-haired leader of the group, a Jew from Poland. She
showed the Auschwitz concentration camp number tatooed
above her wrist. Her parents and her husband's parents, as
well as most of their families, had been liquidated.
"With Europe we are finish. In Israel we begin new life/'
Her husband spoke to her in Hebrew. She turned to me and
said gayly: "Moshe wants you know he will be father in six
months/'
We all laughed. "Congratulations. I wish I could give you
a gift. Wait. For you, Moshe, I have cigarettes. For the baby
I will bring something later/'
Morale here was high. Many couples in the Haganah fought
side by side as friends, fiances, and not infrequently as man
and wife. I guessed that roughly one out of twenty of the
front-line fighters was a girl. The presence of women, sharing
risks with the men, was one of the greatest morale-boosting
factors in the Army of Israel, in contrast to the Arabs who did
not even use women for desk work. Most of the girls were
either native-born sabras or had been in Israel long enough
to get over their European experiences and imbibe the in-
vigorating spirit that the New Land bred. I asked the married
girl about her companion, who seemed a few years older.
''She sharpshooter. Verry verry good sharpshooter soldier/'
I decided to make another call this time to the Public
Information Office, now in Jewish hands. Skipping from shel-
ter to shelter, I reached the barbed-wire entrance, and was
challenged by a sentry. After considerable persuasion he finally
took me to the commander, who turned out to be a youth
from the Bronx named Meyer who had read Under Cover and
had always wanted to meet me. Meyer told me that the build-
ing housed a makeshift transmitter used to broadcast to the
Life in the Besieged City 269
Arabs in the area. He took me to a sniper's room. The win-
dows were boarded, and the place was dark except for a small
aperture framed by sandbags. A Yemenite Jew with a short
gray beard was sitting here, the business end of his rifle point-
ing through the opening. He had a lean, hawkish face and
dark Arabic features with deep-set eyes that gleamed even in
the semidarkness. I took a look through Meyer's binoculars.
I was staring directly at Deir Aboutor! I could see the top of
Osborne House and my other old haunts, less than half a mile
away. Between us was an olive grove and a treacherous no-
man's land of barbed wire, mines, and sniper posts. I won-
dered about Moustafa. I wished, somehow, that he wouldn't
become a victim of the Yemenite's deadly aim,
A few days later I visited the sniper's room again to chat
with Meyer. I did not see him. While waiting I edged over
for another look at Deir Aboutor. The Yemenite suddenly
pushed me aside: he had amazing force in his spindly arms.
He pointed to a pile of discolored sawdust on the spot where I
had just stood. A Haganah soldier explained: "Yesterday from
this exact spot Meyer was looking out. A bullet came through
and hit him between the eyes."
Shaken, I left and walked to the Rehavia residential sec-
tion. I heard children crying: "Mayim, mayirnl Water!" and
saw them run into their houses. They came out followed by
men and women with buckets, kettles, and pots of all sizes.
The water wagon pulled up at the corner and everyone lined
up for the precious fluid. Rations were supposed to be eight
gallons a day. But the cart had been averaging only three trips
a week because of such accidents as a bomb crashing into the
wagon or shrapnel knocking out the driver.
I watched the men and women jostle in line, chattering
excitedly in Hebrew, while the children scampered around
with tin cups catching droplets before they hit the curb.
There was not enough mayfm for the last five women in line.
They were promised double rations for tomorrow. I watched
a boy plead with his mother to carry one of the buckets. She
270 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
gave in; the little fellow was manfully carrying the bucket
when he tripped. The crowd gasped at the tragedy. She
put down her pail, seized Junior, and gave his backside what
everyone thought was a well-deserved trouncing.
The desperate shortage in Jerusalem resulted, of course,
from the Arab smashing of the water-pumping station at
Latrun, a point midway between Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The
Arab Legion, led by English officers, held on to Latrun fa-
natically. Farsighted Jewish officials had long ago sealed most
private wells and collected rainwater. Baths, warm or cold,
were out of the question. The precious liquid was used for
drinking and cooking. What little was left over was used for
washing.
The food situation, too, was becoming critical. The New
City with its hundred thousand souls was encircled with
what had proved so far to be an impenetrable circle of Arab
steel, and convoys again could not get through from Tel Aviv.
For Passover week in mid-April, the rations had been two
pounds of potatoes, a half pound of meat, two eggs, a half
pound of dried fish, four pounds of matzos, a half pound of
matzoh flour, and one and a half ounces of dried fruit. Now
it was much worse!
In the meanwhile, the Palestine Post (printed daily in
Jerusalem, or mimeographed when the electric current gave
out) announced the opening of the Law Courts, the first Jew-
ish Post Office, the appearance of the first policemen, and
the issuance of Israel's first immigration visa. The State was
on its way.
In the Pantiles, Mary announced that she was serving the
last of our meat, and that flour was getting low. As the pumps
depended on the local supply of electricity, we had to take
turns at using the hand pump to fill the reservoir of water
which supplied the Pantiles. After a while the well went dry,
and the pump became useless.
Life in the Besieged City 271
THE PALMACH AND PORTZIM ATTACK
THE BBC announced that King Abdullah had fired a pistol
across the Jordan border as a signal for his armies to cross into
Palestine, thus carrying on the fiction that the Legionnaires
had not been in Palestine before the Mandate ended. The
announcement, however, caused the Haganah to intensify its
efforts to rescue the Old City Jews before the full power of
the Legion was thrown against them. Pushed into an ever-
tightening corner, they had been undergoing a frightful or-
deal. The Haganah began its campaign with a sudden attack
upon Deir Aboutor. Presently reports came that it had cap-
tured the entire area without the loss of a single man, sweep-
ing all my ex-pals before it. My boys had not even put up a
fight. No one could say that they had not time to prepare.
Nor could they plead lack of arms, ammunition, or man-
power. In addition, they had the strategic advantage of being
on high ground. They had everything in their favor except
guts! The braggarts had turned tail without even token re-
sistance.
The Palmach striking force of the Haganah pursued
them down the Valley of Hinnom, and up the steep slopes
of Mount Zion to the walls of Zion Gate (entrance to the
Jewish sector), behind which the Arabs took refuge. The
snipers' nests and mortar emplacements that had plagued us
at the Pantiles were wiped out. We breathed easier after this.
Schmidt and Calder took their beds out of the hallway and
back into their rooms. How the Israelis managed to scramble
up Mount Zion in the face of entrenched Arab positions as-
tonished us all.
This achievement was eclipsed by what followed the next
night.
Davidson and Bilby left immediately after supper, after
having been mysteriously absent most of the day. News had
272 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
spread that the Jews had a devastating "secret weapon": the
"Davidka," named after David of David and Goliath, and
reputed to be powerful enough to rip through the Old City
walls, ten to twenty feet thick. "They may use it tonight/'
it was whispered. Somehow I connected the disappearance of
Bilby and Davidson with the anticipated debut of the
"DavidfoL"
There was something in tonight's attempt which convinced
me that it would be mightier than any previous effort. The
operation was in charge of a twenty-five-year-old sabra called
Uzi, 3 who had led the assault on Castel. Uzi commanded an
undisclosed number of Portzim stormers a special unit of
the Palmach commandos chosen for the assignment. His or-
der of tie day (or night) was curt: "Portzim! You stand
before the walls of Jerusalem. For 1,900 years no Jew has
climbed them. Tonight you will mount them!"
We watched them from the Pantiles roof. The Old City
spread before us under moonlight, looked strange, distant,
infinitely lonesome. Its skyline of spires, cupolas, belfries, and
serrated walls seemed out of place in a modern world. They
were bleached by a moon that made deep shadows, every-
where adding mysterious pools of darkness where the Port-
zim, unseen, were now crawling their way forward under the
noses of Arabs. Olive and poplar trees stood out in black
clumps each deadly with concealed snipers. Fitzsimmons
and I brought out our cameras, ducking frequently at wild
shots that came our way.
By midnight Uzi and the Portzim had swung into decisive
action. As Jewish gunners let go simultaneously, the ancient
walls thundered back with answering fire. It was like a box
of giant firecrackers going off all at once in every direction. A
terrific series of explosions, topped by a mighty volcanic roar,
sounded at Jaffa Gate as a giant geyser of fire leaped from the
base of the massive door, followed by smoke and debris bil-
8 Haganah leaders continued to use aliases, usually Biblical names, as a
carryover from the underground days of the British occupation.
Life in the Besieged City 273
lowing into the air. A phosphorus bomb eerily lit the land-
scape. Arab guns blazed away to check the anticipated assault.
None came. Was it a feint? Did the Jews plan to plunge
through at another point?
The Arabs continued their withering fire upon Mount
Zion. From inside the Old City walls rumble after rumble
echoed into the outer world. The glow from embers and hot
bricks was constant. Who knows how my people were faring
in the monastery that adjoined the Jewish quarter? What a
night of terror for its 3,800 huddled occupants! And who
knows what had happened to the Armenian Church of the
Holy Savior built near the site of the Lord's Last Supper,
dating from the sixth century, just outside Zion Gate? It was
in the direct line of fire, a prime target for the Arabs; as,
twenty-four hours ago, it had been a prime target for the Jews.
Mount Zion is regarded as one of the holiest areas in Jeru-
salem, associated with Christ's last days on earth. He held
his Last Supper here. After the Crucifixion it was on Mount
Zion that He appeared to his disciples and his Mother. Mary
lived and died here in a house that became known as the Holy
Cenacle. Respect for the holy places in the course of fighting,
I had come to realize, is a noble but impossible objective.
Both sides desecrated Christian and Jewish shrines if the sites
interfered with, or proved themselves valuable for, military
operations. After the shooting due respect was accorded,
apologies proffered, sometimes a guard posted, and warning
signs placed in order to: (a) assuage stricken consciences;
(b) present a respectable front for the sake of world opinion.
I learned that neither virtue nor hypocrisy are exclusively
Arab or exclusively Jewish traits.
From the Pantiles rooftop I looked upon the blood-letting
taking place on "sacred" ground. Could anything have been
more savage in a supposedly "Holy City?" Seven miles away
in Bethlehem, Christ was born. He came to Jerusalem over
the road which was now spiked with roadblocks, dragon's-
teeth, mines, barbed wire. All about me the holiest shrines
274 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
of Christendom, Jewry, and Mohammedanism were being des-
ecrated. I had seen so much hatred, fanaticism, hypocrisy, and
bloodshed in Jerusalem that I doubted I could look upon it as
anything but a city of carnage and death. When the devout
pilgrim utters Jerusalem, Yerushalayim (Hebraic) or El Kudz
(Arabic), the word trembles on his lips, and he is swept by
ecstasy. A reporter cannot live by tradition and sentiment
alone. Facts are facts. Guns are guns. Men with their brains
and flesh ripped out by shrapnel their bodies mutilated and
left to rot and stink under the sun speak more realistically of
the spirit of the "Holy City" than the blind emotion of pil-
grims.
THE BREAKTHROUGH!
ZION GATE became the focal point now. Since midnight
a steady, rhythmic barrage had concentrated upon it. Then,
about two a.m., a ponderous and massive projectile of some
kind was shot with a blast from the dark pools of the Yemin
Moshe quarter below us, recurring at about three-minute in-
tervals. When it crashed against the Gate and at various
points along the wall the maximum range could not have
been more than five hundred yards the earth and the fir-
mament shuddered. Was this the "Davidka"? A giant flash
suddenly leaped up from the Armenian monastery, and my
heart twinged. Had a "Davidka" been misdirected there?
How many died? What irreparable damage was done to the
ancient cathedral? The painful tragedy of the Armenians' po-
sition: caught between two fires, pummeled by both sides in a
war in which they had no interest, and which was bound to
hurt them more than either of the principals.
I looked at the time. It was three o'clock. I had been
on watch for six hours. At exactly 3.15 a.m. two young,
sappers crawled to the hinges of Zion Gate, carrying dynamite
Life in the Besieged City 275
charges on their back. As they withdrew behind protective
fire, an earth-quaking explosion ripped the giant gate from its
moorings, shattering sandbags, blowing wire, stone, and scrap
metal sky-high.
The Portzim stormed their way past the inner ring of Arabs
and established contact with the ghetto Jews four hundred
yards inside Zion Gate. For the next hour reinforcements,
food, and medicine poured in, and the wounded were brought
out. Water and ammunition were the greatest need. Eyewit-
nesses found the morale within still excellent. Only the aged
orthodox Jews wanted to surrender.
As the dawn broke over the walls, the Portzim retired and
the Arabs dared to mount the walls again, spitting their fire
over the breached Gate.
The sun burst forth over the crest of the Mount of Olives,
accompanied by an uneasy wind. A flaming orb showed for a
minute, then buried itself in the gray cloud banks that encir-
cled the embattled city. The Arab flag was still flying from the
Citadel. Over the Dormition Church on Mount Zion and
the adjoining property we now saw the Vatican flags. One of
the flagpoles was grotesquely bent. Was this, too, a symbol?
The Vatican flag had provided little immunity. Who cared
about anybody's flag at this time? The Arabs made fortresses
of the Pope's property until driven out by the Jews who, in
turn, used the property the same way, looting what the Arabs
had not. C'est la guerre. War makes the Christian and the
Moslem savage. Why should the Jew be different?
EMERGENCE OF THE "NEW" JEW
I HAD guessed that five hundred Portzim had assaulted Zion
Gate. To my astonishment and I verified the figure care-
fully not more than 125 had taken part. Superbly trained,
armed to the teeth with new Czech rifles, grenades, Sten
278 CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
The next night I saw the Portzim at a Menorah Society
social. Here I saw them play as hard as they had fought. They
danced jigs and horas for hours. Among the girls there were
no wallflowers. They were self-possessed and mature at fifteen.
This was the new Israeli generation marked by a ra 
