Once Upon A Time

The "girl" of the story is now a professor of Hebrew literature and very leftist, but what was done was done:-

In early October 1968, Dayan summoned Yehuda Arbel to his office and told him that he was concerned by the fact that settlers had set up a synagogue within the Tomb of the Patriarchs compound. "I don't want a religious war," he explained, and said he was looking for a solution that would separate the two sides: "The Tomb of the Patriarchs is located under the floor of the mosque, on a lower level. If we find an entrance from outside to the caves, then we've solved the problem. The Jews will enter the caves from below and pray there, and the Muslims will enter and pray on top."

Arbel was excited by the mission, dubbed Mivtza Avot (Operation Forefathers), mostly because it would be a variation on "the daily routine"; after it was over, he authored an account of the affair. The first thing he and his colleagues had to do was learn "which direction the cave below faced in order to get an indication from which side to dig from outside." He went out to survey the area and met with Sheikh Attaf, the Arab in charge of the place, who showed him a round opening on the western side of the mosque, through which it was possible to look down. The sheikh told Arbel that when he was a child, his father, who was also in charge of the mosque, used to lower him down "to clean out the papers." The papers were requests for help that had been tossed in by believers, along with coins and bills.

Arbel immediately saw the possibility of entering the caves of the tomb from the mosque. All that was left to do, according to his written account, was to wait for the right moment. That moment arrived on October 10, 1968, during the intermediary days of the Sukkot holiday. Around noon that day, a grenade was tossed at Jewish visitors on the steps to the mosque's main entrance; 40 people were wounded, Hebron was placed under curfew and the mosque was closed. "I knew that this could be a one-time opportunity to carry out the visit to the mosque," Arbel wrote.

He went home, according to his account: "I asked my wife if she thought that our 12-year-old daughter Michal [she was actually 13 already] would agree to go down through a narrow hole, deep into a dark cave. She immediately replied that not only would Michal agree, she would also be glad to do it. I explained that the cave in question was the Tomb of the Patriarchs. We called Michal and presented the mission to her. My wife was right as usual. Michal was glad and showed great enthusiasm."

The afternoon hours were used for training: The girl learned how to photograph and sketch a part of a building ("We made her sketch the house several times"), to determine directions using a compass and how to write a report. "After the tiring training, she went to sleep, and I promised to wake her up during the night."

Arbel called Rehavam Ze'evi, head of the army's regional command: "I told him that I had to carry out a secret mission in the cave and that I wanted special arrangements for it - moving the guard around it further away, and the assistance of the deputy governor." He also asked for several "professionals" and for some equipment to be ready for 10 P.M. that night. In a chapter entitled "The Execution," he describes how he woke his daughter, wrapped her in a blanket and drove with her to Hebron. After they brought the equipment into the mosque, "I sent my driver to bring 'the package' from the car. He carried the blanket on his back and when Michal emerged from it, the guys who were there instantly realized what I meant to do and thought I was out of my mind."

Michal was attached to a rope. "We managed to squeeze her through the hole, which was just 28 centimeters in diameter. The only fear was that there wouldn't be air below and that if she fainted we wouldn't be able to come to her aid. Therefore I gave her matches and a candle with which to check the air." Arbel writes that Michal's descent went smoothly and that he stuck his head in the hole and listened to her descriptions: On the western wall she saw three tombstones - two blank and one decorated. On the eastern side there was an opening and a corridor beyond it. He instructed her to move toward the corridor and to measure the length and width of the space in steps.

"She entered the corridor and we didn't hear her voice anymore, but based on the rope that was pulled along after her, I estimated that she'd gone about 20 meters. After a few minutes that seemed quite long, she returned and said that the corridor ended at some ascending stairs that came up to a small flat surface. Above her head she saw iron hooks that held a large stone."

Michal was equipped with a camera, and paper and pencil, and was asked to photograph and draw the place in full detail. The entire mission lasted about three and a half hours, until 3 A.M. Arbel eagerly sent the film for development and printing so that in the morning, when Dayan came to tour the place, a surprise would be waiting for him.

When Dayan descended from his helicopter, Arbel handed him the photos and drawings his daughter had made. Dayan, taken aback, asked how they had done this. "I told him that I'd lowered my daughter through the hole. He stopped in his tracks and asked: 'Have you gone mad?'"

My father thought that it would end the tension between the Jews and Arabs. They believed in such solutions. At an older age, both my sister and I understood that on certain issues, there could be no dialogue with them. When I asked my mother why she said yes to this, she replied, 'You wanted to,' as if I could have been the one to take responsibility. She didn't think that it was dangerous. I remember that when they lowered me down there the first time, I was standing on a huge pile of pieces of paper and money. I felt that I was doing something wrong. After that I crawled through the corridor."

You weren't scared?

Today, Michal Arbel recalls that she went down into the tomb just one more time. On October 18, she was sent through the hole again, in order to check where the incline beneath the floor of the room with the tombstones led. From the report her father wrote, it appears that there was also a third time. One day in November 1968, Yehuda Arbel wrote, an IDF post next to the cave was blown up. The post was unmanned at the time, but an Arab boy was killed and two adult Arabs were injured. "This was another opportunity to make a visit, again with Michal's help."

This time she was asked "to move the decorated tombstone from its place. This was because I surmised that this tombstone was blocking the rest of the way into the caves or into another little room. Michal tried very hard, but she couldn't do it." A Jordanian newspaper reported that the blowing up of the IDF post was an act of provocation by settlers, "who lately have been spotted in all kinds of hiding places around the Tomb of the Patriarchs."

For her part in those risky missions, the young Michal earned a place of honor in the minds of the Hebron settlers. But today, Dr. Michal Arbel is still dealing with the anger that the whole affair has left her with. She hasn't given any interviews about it until now, and even after her father's death in 1984 from a severe illness, she turned down requests to talk about the operation in which she took part, about whose motives and aims she still has misgivings. From her point of view today, her parents also behaved very irresponsibly.