When the second truce in Israel’s War of Independence went into effect on July 18, 1948, Israel was militarily in a far better position than it had been at the outbreak of the war. Israel had hurriedly – almost from scratch – assembled an army of more than 100,000 troops; every sixth Israeli was enlisted.
At this juncture of the war, Israel had two compelling military goals: to drive the Jordanian forces out of Judea and Samaria and to expel the Egyptians from the Negev. Ben-Gurion (a pragmatist and not a dreamer) wished to do both, but his military advisors told him, in no uncertain terms, that this was not possible. Prima facie, attacking in Judea and Samaria appeared more pressing, as the Jordanians were ten miles from Tel Aviv – while the Egyptians were 40 miles away. Judea and Samaria were also Biblically more important than the Negev desert.
There was, however, an additional concern that trumped the Negev over Judea and Samaria. Count Bernadotte, the UN mediator for Palestine, was trying to force a political solution that would rob Israel of the Negev. Additionally, as Irish diplomat Conor Cruise O’Brien noted, Egypt was more outspokenly hostile than Jordan, and militarily weaker at the time. Egypt was the largest of the Arab states and its radio propaganda was directly responsible for Arabs attacks against Israel. If Egypt would retreat from the Negev, the moral effect on Israel’s other enemies would be a huge win.
Subsequent to the UN Partition Plan in 1947, which divided British-mandate Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, the Negev (which had been promised to Israel) became vitally important to both sides. In the War of Independence Israel was fighting for every inch which would become part of its future state, and precisely to prevent this, Egypt, along with other Arab countries, invaded.
By October 1948, Egyptian forces had pressed so deep into the Negev that they were able to menace the key artery linking Tel Aviv to the southern towns and Jewish settlements. The Egyptians had already captured strategic positions such as Beersheva and Rahat, giving them the upper hand.
Israel’s innovative, young commander of the Negev campaign was Yigal Allon. In order to break the Egyptian hold, he would have to get his troops to the south undetected. This was a significant challenge as the only surfaced road was bordered by several Egyptian strongholds. What the Israeli forces under Allon’s command did was a classic example of a recurring theme in Israeli strategy: the harnessing of historical information, innovative intelligence, and creative tactical thinking.
Soldiers went looking for, and discovered, an ancient route built by the Romans 2,000 years earlier. The Roman Road, known as the Ruheiba Trail, is located, according to Sir Martin Gilbert, on the site of the Biblical city of Rechovot. It was an old trade route that connected the coastal plain to the southern part of the desert and had been forgotten over the years.
The discovery of this alternate route is very reminiscent of the discovery of the so-called Burma Road five months earlier by three (ultimately uniting with two other) Palmach soldiers who had followed a shepherd footpath that crawled up the steep side of a ravine. In the dead of the night, the two Palmach patrols – one departing from Jerusalem, the other from Tel Aviv –had providentially bumped into each other on a desolate Judean ridge, delirious that they had discovered a clandestine route to Jerusalem that was sheltered from gunfire from the Latrun fortress.
On the high ground dominating the road to Jerusalem was an impenetrable Arab garrison located at Latrun, and Israel had neither the troops nor the weaponry to launch an uphill battle, although it tried and failed miserably in two attempts.
Jordanian artillery mounted in Latrun dominated over the single artery to the besieged capital. Because of this, Jerusalem’s nearly 100,000 Jews were cut off and on the brink of starvation; their ammunition was also exhausted.
To make this shepherd trail truck usable (forget truck-friendly), scores of stonecutters gathered from all over Israel and worked around the clock banging and clanking to widen the roadbed. They were unable to blast as that would have revealed their location, so the bypass was hewn by hand as in the days of yore. The famous American Colonel Mickey Marcus (of Hollywood’s Cast a Giant Shadow fame) oversaw the conversion of the winding and steep animal trail.
The clandestine alternate route to Jerusalem was nicknamed the Burma Road, an anomaly in Israel where everything is awarded a Biblical name. The sobriquet was taken from the road built by the Allies during World War II that traverses seven hundred miles of perilous mountainous switchbacks that connect Burma to Southwest China to avoid the Japanese blockade of the Chinese coast. Because of the similarity of circumstances, the Israelis adopted the same moniker.
Just as the Burma Road was tested to see if it could be used to traverse supplies, the Roheiba Trail was put to trial to see if it could be used by tanks. Yitzchak Rabin, the Operations Officer of the attacking force, assessed, as quoted by Sir Martin Gilbert: “It is difficult, but possible, after a certain amount of repairs to the track.” Secretly and expeditiously, the overhauls were executed.
The Egyptians logically expected an Israeli assault from the conventional route and were totally unprepared for an enemy that materialized out of nowhere from a trail that was concealed and provided natural cover. By attacking through the ancient route which averted difficult rocky desert terrain, Israel was able to achieve a total surprise that thoroughly disrupted Egyptian defenses that not only pushed them out of the Negev, but also allowed Israeli troops to punch into the Sinai Peninsula, ultimately forcing Egypt to the negotiating table.
Inventive Israeli military strategy that has enabled her to outthink and outmaneuver her adversaries is a subject worthy of an additional column, please G-d.
