Purely Commentary Leonard • Mosley -has written one of the most remarkable ' stories of our time, about one of the -most interesting characters of our generation. . . His "Gideon Goes. to War: The Story of Major T General Orde C. Wingate," (published by Charles Scribner's. Sons, 597 5th Ave:, N.Y. 17) deals with the ma_n who created the background for the Jewish defense forces in Israel, who helped establish the Haganah, :who- had' visions of leading conquering JeWish forces in establishing a Jewish State; He . foresaw the reality of the State. He defied his own government in laboring towards the end that- Jews • might re-acquire statehood. Wingate's story is "of special interest at this" time • as an indication of the influence that Biblical scholarship had on the dreams of Christians as well as Jews for the re-establish- ment of the Jewish State. * * "There will be no free- Palestine for the • Jews unless you fight and win," was Wingate's approach to Palestine'S Jewish leaders in the early 1930s. He sounded like 'a "madman," but he knew whereof he spoke. Dr. Chaim Weizmann, then president of the World Zionist Organization, later the first..President .of ,spoke of him as "my favorite madman." The biographer of Wingate adds that Dr. Weizmarin "was_ genuinely fond of him,. and accepted from his lips orders and insults • he would never- -have - taken from a Jew." * * Wingate studied and mastered - Hebrew. He constantly recited Psalms, often chanting them in Hebrew, and he kept repeating the "shit_ hamaalot" • of the 138th Psalm: "When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion . . ." Mosley writes in his interesting story that Wingate was "a convinced Zionist" who made no secret of his desire to help Jews win their independence, "even if it meant fighting other enemies of Zion -besides the Arabs" --- and that included the British themselves. When the inhuman British White Paper was issued, Wingate urged Jewish leaders to launch an attack "against the great oil refinery in Haifa." He told them: "Its destruction would be a grave blow to the British Empire." He gave assurance that he would •gain entrance for Jews into the refinery. When he was questioned, how • could he do that as a British officer, "what about your military career?", he answered: "There are times when a man must make a decision. Now, comrades, are you with me — am I to lead you?" His proposal was turned down. The Jewish leaders felt that 1939 was not the time "to embarrass the British, even for the sake of a Jewish State." * - * * . • • Wingate paid a price for his stand. After building up the Jewish fighting forces, after leading them in attacks against nests of Arab bandits who were endangering the security of Jewish settlements, he was recalled from Palestine and was ordered never again to return to the Holy Land. He had • a similar tragic fate later in Ethiopia, where he was responsible for the return of Haille Selasie to his throne. He wound up his career as the hero of the Burma .campaign, as the leader in the Chindit operation, as the man who, defying the entire British military machine that had disapproved of his tactics, set into motion a drive that helped turn the tide of War. He was 41 when he died in an air crash in Burma, having given his life for his country and the Allied cause. But he died hoped a Zionist, always dreaming of a future in which he -had to lead victorious Jevis in the re' creation of their statehood. In Palestine,. Wingate operated from Jewish settlements, and was especially attached to Ein Harod which "had its spiritual attraction too: for here, under the lee of Gilboa, was Gideon's burial-place; and here, it. is no exaggeration to say that Wingate felt like a soldier of the Old Testament too." There is a moving deScription of "Wingate's interest in the Zionist cause by Moshe Dayan, now head of the Israeli army, then one of Wingate's young jewish associates in the establish- Ment of the -Haganah, in •MosleY's "Gideon Goes to War." "He was never wrong," Dayan said, describing Wingate's raid on Arab bandit hangouts. "I never knew him to lose an engage- ment. He was never worried about odds . . . There were many men who served with him at Bin Harod who later became officers in the Israeli army which fought and defeated. the Arabs, but they were not- the only ones who benefited,, from Thrilling Story of the In- spired Christian _Z ionist and Brilliant Military Leader, Maj.-Gen. Wingate By Philip Slomovitz Between You and Me By BORIS SMOLAR (Copyright, 1956, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Inc.) PROGRESS REPORT The United Jewish Appeal is doing extremely well this year • Maj. Gen. ORDE C. WINGATE, his Widow, LORNA WIN- GATE, and their son, ORDE JONATHAN. When Mrs. Wingate brought their four-year-old son to Israel, during the Arab- Jewish war, in 1948, she said: "Israel is at war. If I had gold and money, I would contribute them for the war. which _my husband foresaw. Not having them, I decided to send you my son. I am sending him to be educated in Israel, and to be a loyal son of both Israel and Britain.'! his training. In some sense, every leader of the Israeli army even today is a disciple of Wingate. He gave us our technique, he was the inspiration of our tactics, he was our dynamic." Interestingly enough, this brilliant British officer once told Jewish soldiers, in Hebrew: "Don't imitate the British Tommy. Learn his calmness and discipline, but not his stupidity, brutality and drunkenness." Only once did this great man, this military genius, go on a drunk: when he heard of the issuance of the British White Paper of 193 shutting off the immigration of Jews to Palestine. * * * Avraharn Akavia, a - young Jew who was his interpreter in Hebrew in Ein Harod, became one of his closest friends. He accompanied him to Ethiopia. Wingate continued a •correspondence with Jews in Palestine, even while he was in Delhi, during the bitterest days of the Burma struggles. .Mosley writes that "nothing was so important to him as his return to the Holy Land. to take • over the army of the Jews and lead them to victory. One day, just before the Chindit operation began, a special plane arrived at Orde Wingate's_ headquarters bringing Lord Mountbatten, several British generals and a flock of American brass hats to visit him; and also, having sneaked a ride, there was aboard the war correspondent of Time and Life magazines, - Harry Zinder (now head of the -Israel: Broadcasting CommiSSion) . • • Wingate -caught - sight of Zinder, whom • he had known -in Cairo, and darted from the car. He rushed up the steps crying: 'Shalom, shalom,' for he knew Zinder • was a Jew, and dragged him to his car. 'You shall come back and stay with me and talk to me about- Palestine,' he said, completely ignoring the visitors. 'I spoke very bad Hebrew at the time,' Zinder remembers, 'but he insisted we- use that language, rattling away so that all the others could hear him. And all . he would talk about was his urgent longing to be back in Palestine, to finish with this war and get on with the work he loVed.' " Many believed that • if he could, Wingate would have resigned his commission and would have gone to Palestine to fight with and for the Jews, even if it were to be against his own British - government. Mosley poses the question,- "would. the Jews really have choserl Orde Wingate to lead them, as he belieivied?" And his answer is: "My own conversations with Jewish leaders and Jewish soldiers make me doubt it. This was a Jewish war • for independence which only a Jew could lead . . As I traced Wingate's '-wanderings through Palestine, years after their War of Independence. was -over, I sensed as a non-Jew that. 'what the Jews were trying- to tell me was that the will of God was kind to •Orde Wingate when He let him die in the jungle in Burma in 1944. The Jews would not have chosen him.• And when. 1949 and the time to choose the leaders came, he may well have died in a more painful way from a broken heart. He was at least spared that.". We read on, in Mosley's "Gideon Goes to War": "Instead, it was his spiritual rather than his bodily presence which heartened the Jews when the battle came, and has given them courage ancl. inspiration ever since. At the height of the Arab-7 Jewish war, his wife came to Israel with her young son. She was flown over a Jewish settlement named Yemin Orde (after Wingate) at a moment when it was being attacked by Arabs from Syria. She had Orde Wingate's Bible with her, and wrote in the flyleaf: `7.5.48. To the defenders of Yemin Orde. Since Orde Wingate is with you in spirit, though he cannot lead you in the flesh, I send you the Bible he carried in all his campaigns and from which he drew the inspiration of his victories. May it be a covenant between you and him, in triumph or defeat, now and always.' "She flung it out of the plane and it was 'picked up._ by the 'settlers, who fought back and repelled the invaders. And in the ensuing weeks, all over Israel, Jewish, soldiers were ng, as he had taught them, with the tactics he had instilled fighti into them. "So, at least in spirit, he did command the armies of Israel when the great battle came. He probably realizes now that it was the will of God, and that it was better that way." These are a few brief impressions gathered from "Gideon Goes to War" by Leonard Mosley. It is a great story that should be read by all who desire to have a full understanding of the great cause of ,Zionism and by those who seek information . . . All indications point to the fact that Israel will receive • through the UJA this year more funds than in 1948, which was the peak year of Jewish fund- raising . in the United States .. It is not expected that - there will be as much money raised this year as in 1948, but on the other hand there are no DP's to be supported today as,there were in 1948 . . . Thus, practically. all the funds raised this year by the UJA will go- to Israel, in- cluding a good portion of the funds allocated to the Joint Dis- tribution Committee, which is now operating in Israel . . . All in all it can be safely predicted that Israel will receive through the United Jewish Appeal this year no less than $400,000,000. .. : This will include funds se- cured through the Special , Sur- vival Fund and other UJA proj- ects. * * ,* WASHINGTON ECHOES Moscow's dramatic offer to help settle the Arab-Israel con- flict has not been received with open arms in Washington be- cause of the undertones of the offer . , . It has a lot of fine- sounding phrases, but it also includes a number of hidden landmines . . . The Moscow statement implies that the Sov- iet government wants the Tri- partite Declaration of 1950 scrapped . ti . This declaration, made jointly by the United States, Britain and France, ob- ligates the "Big Three" to take steps "within and without" the United Nations to prevent war between the Arab countries and Israel_ . . . Although President Eisenhower, in his last state- ment on the Arab-Israel issue, appeared to put the "without" clause in mothballs, the United States is not ready to tear up the Tripartite Declaration . . • It is downgrading it in• an attempt to get action through mediation by UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, but it is not willing .to renounce it alto- gether. * * * UN ANTICIPATIONS In United Nations circles the Soviet offer to participate in a Solution of the Arab-Israel prob- lem is similarly taken with a lot of reservations . . . UN ex- ports believe that the real test of Soviet designs may not come before November . . . At that time the international Mon- treaux convention relating to the status of the' Dardanelles expires . . . Moscow may then make an attempt to enter the Middle East through the front door---through access- to the Mediterranean — rather than through the back door as ts the case now . . . For nearly 300 years, ever since the Russian empire reached the northern shores of the Black Sea, Russia has been making efforts to share in the control of the Turkish straits . • . . All these years her efforts came to naught _and she remained cut off from access to the Mediterranean . • .- Had she been successful in sharing these straits, she would have been in a position to control the whole of the Levant and any route of trade and communica- tion leading from the Mediter- ranean to India . . With Moscow • now considering itself a factor in the Middle East the Soviet efforts to share control of . the Turkish straits are expected to be renewed ... .. There seems to be no doubt that the USSR will make its stand on the Arab-Israel issue dependent on whether she suc- ceeds in realizing her centuries., old ambition to- reach the Mid- dle East not by land but by sea THE WINGATE CHILDREN'S HOME: Workers are shown, through the Dardanelles. . about a man who may have appeared as and acted like a here as they laid the foundation for a home for refugee Jewish 2- D e t ro i t Jewish News ehildren at Nir Etziony in Israel, in memory of Maj. Gen. Orde "madman" but who, in truth, was a groat and an inspired • , FrIclay;-April 27, 1956 leaden 6. Wingate.