RING THEM BELLS :

OBITUARY : Major-General Benjamin Peled (Daily Telegraph, 17/07/2002)

Major-General Benjamin (Benny) Peled, who has died aged 74, was the Commander of the Israeli Air Force (IAF) from 1973 to 1977, leading it during the traumatic days of the Yom Kippur War.

On October 6 1973 Egypt and Syria attacked Israel simultaneously, catching her unprepared and off guard. With war on two fronts - Egyptian troops crossing the Suez Canal, and Syrian tanks rolling into the Golan Heights - and with no reserves mobilised to face the enemy, the task of stopping the Arab invasion was left to the small regular army and the IAF. Defence Minister Moshe Dayan phoned Peled, saying: "It is all on your shoulders now."

But the Syrian and, particularly, the Egyptian system of surface-to-air missile defence of SAM-2 and SAM-3 was efficient; dozens of Peled's planes and pilots were shot down. As the situation during the first day of the war became more desperate, and with 14 new Egyptian bridges being built over the Suez Canal, the Israeli High Command started planning a temporary withdrawal in the Sinai to the Giddi and Mitla passes.

Peled was so against this that he confronted his colleagues at the General Staff. He later recalled: "I told them that if they continued to plan a retreat I would return with a Uzi submachine gun and shoot them all." Then he left, slamming the door so hard that the plaster cracked.

Back at his headquarters, Peled ordered a concentrated air strike on the Egyptians. "I ordered them to attack the [Egyptian] bridges [over the Suez Canal]," he later remembered. "They were all destroyed by my planes for the price of three Phantoms." There was no Israeli retreat from the Suez Canal and, eventually, forces led by General Ariel Sharon were able to cross the Canal into Egypt proper. [...]

Peled was a controversial figure who often criticised Israeli governments. He was vocal in his belief that the territories seized by force in wars were rightfully Israel's: "We don't have sovereignty over a single square inch here," he said in an interview. "The fact that we bought the land from the Arabs is meaningless. Those who oppose us are welcome to fight us. If they lose, the territory is ours. If we lose, it's theirs."

Benny Peled is survived by his wife and three children, two of whom are pilots. On Saturday July 13 he called his close family to his bedside, telling them his last wish: "Take to the streets with bells, and shout out that the madman who thought the Jews could build a state has died." He did, 10 minutes later.

The sentiment he expressed--"Those who oppose us are welcome to fight us. If they lose, the territory is ours. If we lose, it's theirs."--is, paradoxically, the key to a lasting peace.
Posted by Orrin Judd at July 16, 2002 9:54 PM