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Russell Oppenheim
Ramaz Middle School
New York, NY
Ramaz Middle School
New York, NY
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| Uzi Narkiss: A Hero of the Six Day War From right to left: Yitzchak Rabin, Moshe Dayan, and Uzi Narkiss “Foreign Policy.” 2009. 20 Dec. 2009. http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/files/images/080421_israel6.jpg The Six-Day War (June 5-10, 1967), fought by Jordan, Syria, and Egypt against Israel, resulted in one of Israel’s most significant victories. Although Israel did not intend to fight on its eastern flank, Jordan’s entry into the war prompted it to do so. This put the Israelis in a position to try to capture East Jerusalem, which had been off limits since Israel lost it in the Israeli War of Independence in 1948. Major General Uzi Narkiss was a key figure in the battle. His plan for the IDF led to the reunification of the city. For Narkiss, who had also fought for Jerusalem in 1948, the reunification of Jerusalem under Israel’s control was the completion of a task begun nineteen years earlier. In the years leading up to the Six-Day War, Israel’s enemy neighbors increased their threats and attacks. On May 18, 1967, Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser ejected the United Nations peacekeeping forces along its borders with Israel. On May 23, Egypt blockaded the Israeli port of Eilat. Then, Nasser, in a speech on an Egyptian air force base in the Sinai Peninsula where Egypt had more than 60,000 troops stationed, announced, “If Israel wishes to threaten war, we tell her, ‘We are ready for war… War might be an opportunity for the Jews and for Israel to test their strength against ours’ ” (Pace 1). Israel decided that it had to make a surprise preemptive attack on Egypt’s forces. On June 5, Israeli planes attacked Egyptian air force positions and destroyed most of Egypt’s air force (“Six Day War” 1). In the span of the next few days, Israel’s military crippled Egyptian forces in Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula (CAMERA 5). Israel was willing to keep the conflict limited so as not to have to fight on multiple fronts, but, urged by Nasser, Jordan shelled West Jerusalem and the battle for the city began (Oren 187). General Uzi Narkiss was a key figure in this battle. On June 5, when Jordan’s attack began, his concern was to protect the Israeli enclave on Mount Scopus, because he presumed that whoever held this strategic high point would control all of Jerusalem. Narkiss had a mind that analyzed possibilities for victory. For a full day, he studied maps from what he thought to be the perspective of a Jordanian commander to determine how to attack and from where. His strategy worked (Narkiss, Liberation 87). Narkiss was highly motivated because he was not just fighting for the immediate situation; he was fighting for the country he loved and the city in which he had been born. Although Jordan had quickly taken Government House on June 5, Israeli forces took it back, which secured the southern area of the city. His concern about Mount Scopus led him to ask for air support so he could secure the city’s north. As he later wrote:
‘No way. The pilots are exhausted. It cannot be done.’ …But I insisted. ‘My friends, with all due respect, it is not for Tel-Aviv or Haifa. It’s for Jerusalem. And there is only one Jerusalem!’ And the planes were sent up and hit the enemy armored column. (Narkiss Soldier 208) With these successes behind him, Narkiss wanted to liberate the Old City, but Defense Minister Dayan told him to wait. But then, as Narkiss later reported, “On Wednesday morning, 7 June 1967, at 6 a.m., a telephone call came through from Gen. Bar-Lev:… ‘Uzi, you have authorization to occupy the Old City of Jerusalem. Do it as quickly as possible’ ” (Narkiss Soldier 209). Narkiss ordered the paratroopers in, and once they reported that the area was secure, he and his men went into the Old City with the goal of reaching the Western Wall. Even when one of the tires on their jeep flattened to the point that it could go no further, they just hopped on to another one and kept going. When they were in the second jeep and got to the Via Dolorosa, there was a tank stuck in the way, and they could not get around it so they climbed over it and continued on foot (Narkiss, Liberation 252). A helpful asset that Narkiss had was that he knew the streets from his youth. When they finally got to the Western Wall, the soldiers were weeping with joy. Rabbi Goren, the chief Rabbi of the IDF, blew a shofar. Narkiss later wrote of the experience, “Until that moment I thought I was immune to anything. Even the stones responded.” And after telling his troops to stand at attention and sing Hatikvah, he reported:
indistinct. Sobbing and singing, it was as though through the hatikva we could unburden our hearts of their fulness and our spirits of their emotion. (Narkiss, Liberation 256) Nineteen years earlier in the Israeli War of Independence, Narkiss had fought to keep all of Jerusalem in Israeli territory, but because of depleted ammunition, he and his men had to evacuate leaving Eastern Jerusalem, containing the Old City, to Jordan. But he was lucky enough to get a second chance. As Defense Minister Moshe Dayan later praised him, “The day before I was appointed defense minister, we went over his plans, and here we are; they were carried out unaltered” (Narkiss, Liberation 271). So when Narkiss helped to win back the city nineteen years later, he completed what he had started. As he said after the war, “My experience fighting in Jerusalem in 1948 had scarred me deeply. In Jerusalem, I knew, what you don’t finish today you may not be able to finish tomorrow” (Oren 242). Works Cited “Foreign Policy.” 2009. 20 Dec. 2009. < http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/files/images/080421_israel6.jpg>. Narkiss, Uzi. The Liberation of Jerusalem. Portland, Oregon: Vallentine Mitchell And Company Limited, 1983. Narkiss, Uzi. Soldier of Jerusalem. Portland Oregon: Vallentine Mitchell, 1998. Oren, Michael. Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pace, Eric. “Cairo Acts to Bar Israeli Shipping in Gulf of Aqaba” New York Times 23 May 1967. 7 March 2010. “The Six-Day War.” Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA). 2007. Camera. 20 December 2009. < http://www.sixdaywar.org/index.asp>. “Six-Day War.” Encyclopedia of Judaism. EBSCO Databases. Web. 21 Dec. 2009. Smith, Terrence. “Israelis in Jerusalem, Often Divided, Unite Calmly to Prepare to Defend City” New York Times 4 June 1967. 15 November 2009. “Uzi Narkiss: (1925-1997)”. Jewish Virtual Library. 2009. 19 December 2009. < http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/narkiss.html>. |
