The Marsh Angel by Hagai Dagan (ebooks online reader .TXT) 📗

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command claimed responsibility for the attack. They released the following statement:

Yesterday, on Thursday, the thirteenth day of Rabi‘ al-Akhir, our courageous soldiers carried out a heroic operation against the superior forces of the Zionist occupation army at the shores of Yaffa and at General Headquarters in the heart of Tel-Aviv. Our forces attacked the Zionists from the sea and from the air, inflicting massive casualties. 45 soldiers of the occupation army perished and 87 more were wounded. Of our forces, 5 soldiers became martyrs. The ingenious operation and the high level of execution, including advanced collaboration among different branches of the organization, sewed confusion and wreaked havoc among the enemy’s lines. The operation targeted enemy military forces exclusively. It aimed at the heart of the Zionist entity, at the general headquarters of its army, with the objective of sowing chaos among its complacent inhabitants and to demonstrate that no place is outside the reach of the long arm of the Palestinian resistance. Historic justice does not stop at the Lebanese border. Yaffa, Haifa, Tiberius, we have not forgotten you.

Eternal glory to our dauntless martyrs. Revolution until liberation.

A different edition of the statement, published in Arabic media outlets, mentioned the names of the soldiers killed and their affiliation— seaborne or airborne. All in all, five names were listed, all of whom were men. No woman was mentioned.

None of the claims-of-responsibility mentioned any word of collaboration with the Iranians, nor did the Israelis suggest any such thing. The Iranians, for their part, remained silent. The Sunday Times published a piece, claiming that according to ‘insider sources,’ the operation was conducted with Iranian support. But the article made little impact in the Israeli media, which focused on other aspects. For a whole week, the media did not relent in its coverage of the ‘murderous attack’. Reporters tended to ignore the fact that the operation had targeted military forces rather than civilians; the terminology employed in the newspapers, on the radio, and on television consisted of terrorists, murderers, and heinous terror. The media lamented the fallen soldiers and covered their funerals extensively.

Three hours after the organization had claimed responsibility for the attack, the Israeli air-force bombed a PFLP-GC base in al-Na‘ameh, south of Beirut. The base contained some light artillery, ammunition storages, and a few old tanks, but all of these were burrowed deep within the Chouf Mountains, and the bombing failed to inflict anything more that superficial damage. Tamir knew that PFLP-GC operatives were well aware that al-Na‘ameh would be targeted after any successful attack that they— or sometimes even other organizations— carried out. It was routine. So they burrowed in and prepared in advance. Still, a driver and a quartermaster were killed in the bombing.

A couple of days after the attack, the media started hinting at a case of intelligence failure. Several politicians were quick to demand an independent investigation into the affair. The Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Defense pursued a two-pronged approach to the matter: officially, they announced that the matter will be looked into with due care and attention, and that the IDF is aptly equipped to scrutinize its own conduct. The message was clear: they would wait for the affair to peter out. Newspapers and opposition politicians cried out against the government’s inaction, but sure enough, the media soon found a new story to feature and the wave of outcry dissipated.

Internally, however, the system reached boiling point. The chief of staff was summoned to see the minister of defense; he was firmly rebuked, and told that he’d better wake his intelligence services up. The minister issued a thinly-veiled warning that he was not going to protect him from the media for long, and that the last thing the chief of staff wanted was a blight on his record so close to the end of his military career— especially if he harbored any desires to pursue the fast-track from his office to national politics. The perturbed chief of staff immediately summoned the director of the Military Intelligence Directorate to his office. He made it clear to him that if he had any designs on being promoted to deputy chief of staff, or one day even to land the main job itself, he had to demonstrate that he’d shaken up the system and drawn the necessary conclusions. Most importantly, he had to point the finger at someone— or the finger would be pointed at him.

Tamir read all of that in a column by Haaretz newspaper’s military correspondent. He had no idea how the correspondent knew all that he did, but he was impressed by the depth of the intelligence probe. He sat in his balcony, overlooking the serene Simon Thassi Street, resting lazily under a pleasant Saturday afternoon’s winter sun; he somberly thought to himself that if the military correspondent was right— and why wouldn’t he be right— then it wouldn’t take long before the steam venting from above would find its way down to the corridors of the futuristic fort where he plied his trade. That’s a shitty metaphor, he thought to himself, steam rises, it doesn’t compress downwards. What heats at the top and bursts downwards? he mused. The wrath of God, perhaps.

b. The Best Interest of the Matter

The following day, when Tamir arrived at the base, Moti wasn’t there. He didn’t come in for the rest of the day either. The other unit heads conducted their business as usual, and Tamir tried to do the same. But it was merely a charade: business was anything but usual for Tamir and his unit ever since the attack. Some colleagues carefully congratulated him, some tried not to bring it up, but it was clear that everyone was walking on eggshells around him and no one really knew what to say. He wasn’t sure what any of them actually knew of what transpired during the attack.

Tamir submitted a detailed report to Moti, which he knew would make its way