Meir Har-Zion

Meir Har-Zion
Born	1934
Allegiance	Israel
Unit	Unit 101; 890th Paratroop Battalion

Meir Har-Zion, 1956

Meir Har-Zion (Hebrew:מאיר הר ציון: born 1934) is a former Israeli military commando.

As a key member of Unit 101 he was highly praised by Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan who described him as "the finest of our commando soldiers, the best soldier ever to emerge in the IDF."^[1] His three-year military career was ended by injuries sustained in battle.

Youth

Born in 1934 in Herzliya,^[2] to second generation Sabra, Har-Zion and his father moved to Ein Harod in 1947. In 1949 he was briefly detained with his 13-year-old sister, Shoshana, after being caught in Syrian territory east of Beisan. Two years later they were both captured by a shepherd while on the Syrian side of the border. This time they were held prisoner in Damascus for three weeks.^[3]

During his first year in the army he made the trek to Petra, 40 km inside Jordan. During the 1950s around a dozen Israeli teenagers were killed on trips to Petra. It was a elite rite of passage. The song "HaSela HaAdom" (The Red Rock), which praised a group killed attempting the trek, was banned.^[4]

Unit 101

In 1953 he was one of the founding members of Unit 101. He took part in the unit's first operation at the end of August 1953. Sixteen men with two jeeps, two command cars and a reconnaissance aircraft attacked the 'Azazme bedouin camps around the wells at al Auja. Their tents were burnt and anything attempting to reach the water was shot at.^[5]

On the night of 14/15 October 1953 around 65 men from Unit 101 joined a larger IDF force in an attack on the village of Qibya. Har-Zion commanded one of three squads sent to ambush any reinforcements coming from Ni'lin, Budrus, and Shuqba.^[6] In another night time attack, 18/19 December 1953, two Unit 101 squads led by Har-Zion ambushed a car on the Bethlehem to Hebron road. A Lebanese-born doctor serving in the Arab Legion, Mansour Awad, was killed. The Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett was annoyed that he had not been informed about the attack beforehand. Three nights later Har-Zion led a four man squad on a 21-kilometre march to the outskirts of Hebron where they placed a bomb outside a house chosen at random. Two men and a pregnant women were killed.^[7]

890th Paratroop Battalion

Meir Har-Zion, 1954

The following year, 26 May 1954, Har-Zion was amongst a ten-man squad from the newly formed 890th Paratroop Battalion, led by its commander Arik Sharon, which carried out a raid near Khirbet Jinba, south west of Hebron. Two National Guardsmen were killed in an ambush as well as two farmers and two camels. Sharett once again complained about not being informed and suspected that Minister of Defence Pinhas Lavon had not been consulted either.^[8]

On 27/28 June 1954 Har-Zion was in a seven man squad led by Major Aharon Davidi that launched a surprise attack on an Arab Legion camp at Azzun, 13 km east of Qalqilya. Three Legionnaires were killed as well as a farmer, Rafi'a Abdel Aziz Omar, who was stabbed to death by Har-Zion to prevent him raising the alarm. On their return to Israeli lines one of the team who had been wounded, Sergeant Yitzhak Jibli, was left behind.^[9] On discovering that Sergeant Jibli had been taken prisoner Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan approved a series hostage taking raids.^[10]

On 31 July/1 August 1954 Har-Zion led a group of ten raiders who attacked two policemen near Jenin, taking one of them prisoner. On their way back they killed a farmer watching his fields.^[11] On the 30/31 August 1954 Har-Zion took part in Operation Binyamin 2. This operation was approved by Prime Minister Moshe Sharett and was commanded by Ariel Sharon. The attackers were divided into four groups. The first attacked a school building in the village of Beit Liqya. The other three set ambushes for the expected arrival of reinforcements. Only Har-Zion's group were successful. They had strung a wire across the road with cans of petrol at each end. A car full of soldiers from the Arab Legion drove into the trap. Two were killed, one wounded and three taken prisoner.^[12] Jibli was released on 29 October 1954.

The Har-Zion Affair

In the middle of February 1955 Har-Zion's sister, Shoshana, along with her boyfriend Oded Wagmeister, both 18, were murdered at Wadi al Ghar whilst on an illegal cross-border hike. Har-Zion and three members of the 890th Battalion resigned from the army. On 4 March, supplied with arms and food, Ariel Sharon drove them to the Armistice Line with Jordan. In Wadi al Ghar, 9 km from the border, they captured six bedouin from the Jahaleen and 'Azazme tribes. The prisoners were interrogated and five of them killed, four with knives and the fifth was shot. One of the dead was 16 years old. The sixth was sent back to his tribe to tell what happened. The men probably had nothing to do with the killing of Har-Zion's sister. David Ben Gurion told the cabinet that the Israelis did not know enough Arabic to understand what their prisoners were saying.

On their return Har-Zion was held in custody for 20 days, but, despite giving a full confession to the military police, he was released without charge and soon rejoined the army. Sharett, who suspected that Dayan had advanced knowledge of the raid, noted in his diary: "The dark soul of the Bible has come alive among the sons of Nahalal and 'Ein Harod".^[13]

End of career

Operation Jonathon, 11/12 September 1955, was an attack by two paratroop companies on Khirbet al Rahwa police fort, on the Hebron-Beersheba road, in which over 20 Jordanian soldiers and policemen were killed. During the fighting Har-Zion was wounded in the throat and arm. His life was saved by an army doctor who performed a tracheotomy whilst still on the battlefield.^[14][15]

His injuries left him unable to continue his army career. He was awarded Medal of Courage. He had attained the rank of Captain. In 1969 he published his diaries which gave an account of his time as a paratrooper.^[16]

Of one of the early attacks he wrote: "Once again I am beset by this strong feeling of discord... the feel of battle, the will to victory, the hatred towards one who wishes to take from you what is most precious of all – your life. These first victories have been too easy.'"^[17]

He also gives an account of the killing of Rafia Abdul Aziz Omar: ".... A telephone line blocks our way. We cut it and continue. A narrow path leads along the slope of a hill. The column marches forward in silence. Stop! A few rocks roll down the hill. I catch sight of a man surveying the silence. I cock my rifle. Gibly crawls over to me, "Har, for God's sake, a knife!!" His clenched teeth glitter in the dark and his whole body is tight, his mind alert, "For God's sake," ... I put my tommy down and unsheath my machete. We crawl towards the lone figure as he begins to sing a trilled Arab tune. Soon the singing will turn into a death moan. I am shaking, every muscle in my body is tense. This is my first experience with this type of weapon. Will I be able to do it?" We draw closer. There he stands, only a few meters in front of us. We leap. Gibly grabs him and I plunge the knife deep into his back. The blood pours over his striped cotton shirt. With not a second to lose, I react instinctively and stab him again. The body groans, struggles and then becomes quiet and still.^[18]

In 2005, he was voted the 15th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.^[19]

Currently, he lives in "Ahuzat Shoshana," a farm built on land on a mountaintop above the Jordan Valley. The farm is named after his sister.

References

1. ^ Morris, Benny (1993) Israel's Border Wars, 1949 – 1956. Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation, and the Countdown to the Suez War. Oxford University Press, ISBN 0 19 827850 0. Page
2. ^ [1]
3. ^ Elon, Amos The Israelis. Founders and Sons. p. 232.
4. ^ Morris. Page 239.
5. ^ Teveth, Shabtai (1974) Moshe Dayan. The soldier, the man, the legend. Quartet Books. ISBN 0 704 310805. p 243. Morris, p. 244 has 14 men in group.
6. ^ Morris. Page 246.
7. ^ Morris. Page 293.
8. ^ Morris. Pages 305, 306.
9. ^ Morris. Page 307. Burns, Lieutenant-General E.L.M. (1962) Between Arab and Israeli. George G. Harrap. Page 35. States that Omar had received twelve knife or bayonet wounds.
10. ^ Teveth. Page 253.
11. ^ Teveth. Page 253 describes the prisoner as a Jordanian soldier. Burns. Page 36,37.
12. ^ Morris. Page 310. Burns. Page 37 and 17 for description of technique.
13. ^ Morris. Pages 384–386.
14. ^ Morris. Page 393. Teveth. Pages 243,244.
15. ^ Dayan, Moshe (1965) Diary of the Sinai Campaign 1956. Sphere Books edition (1967) page 32. "He was gravely wounded, the bullet striking his windpipe, but his life was saved by the medical officer of the unit, who crawled to him under fire and preformed a tracheotomy with his pocket knife."
16. ^ Har-Zion, Meir Pirkei Yoman. (Hebrew: Chapters of a diary), Tel Aviv, Levin-Epstein.
17. ^ Teveth, Page 243.
18. ^ Livia Rokach: A study based on Moshe Sharett's diary, Foreword by Noam Chomsky, 1980. Appendix 3.
19. ^ גיא בניוביץ' (1995-06-20). "הישראלי מספר 1: יצחק רבין – תרבות ובידור". Ynet. http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3083171,00.html. Retrieved 2011-07-10. 

Persondata
Name	Har-Zion, Meir
Alternative names
Short description	Paratrooper
Date of birth	1934
Place of birth	Herzlia
Date of death
Place of death