The dispute between the Israeli generals and former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion over the conduct of Israel’s War of Liberation in 1948 found its echo in Israel’s Parliament today when Moshe Carmel, a leader of the Achdut Avodah party who was commander of the Northern front during the war, told the Parliament that the mistakes which prevented the total liberation of Palestine from the Arabs were political and not military. He attributed these mistakes to Mr. Ben-Gurion who was at that time Premier and Defense Minister.
Meanwhile, the Herut party presented a request for a Parliamentary investigation into the question as to who was actually responsible for various alleged failures during the War of Liberation. Yesterday, Major General Yigal Allon, who commanded several important fronts in 1948 and is now Labor Minister, and General Yigael Yadin, who was Chief of Operations and later Chief of Staff, charged that Mr. Ben-Gurion’s political decisions caused some military setbacks for the Israeli Army.
Three other Israeli generals and former commanders in 1948 today joined Allon, Yadin and Carmel in asserting that the final borders were fixed by political decisions for which Mr. Ben-Gurion was responsible. The three were: Major General Haim Laskov, Major General Mordechai Makleff and Israel Galili, former Deputy Minister of Defense. Generals Laskov and Makleff are former Chiefs of Staff.
The dispute between the generals and Mr. Ben-Gurion was precipitated by an interview given by the latter this week to the newspaper Haboker stating that he believed that if General Dayan, now Agriculture Minister, had been in command of the 1948 operations, Israel’s borders would have been “different” and its military achievements “greater.” General Dayan had led a commando unit which scored great successes in the 1948 war. He became Chief of Staff in 1953 and commanded Israel’s forces in the defeat of Egypt in the 1956 Suez campaign. The statement was viewed as downgrading the military achievements of the former commanding generals.
Haboker yesterday published an item on the circumstances surrounding Mr.Ben-Gurion’s statement. The newspaper reported that the former Premier had hailed all Israeli Chiefs of Staff and said other nations would have been blessed to have such military leadership. Then he proceeded to make his comment that the results would have been better if General Dayan had been Chief of Staff in 1948. Supporters of the former Premier insisted that what he had said had not been understood precisely and that in any case, his views were not as they had been published in the interview.
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