Travel: Uneasy access

Overlooks, nature walks and exciting virtual figures in Yitzhak Rabin Park make the 1948 siege of Jerusalem and the battle for the road to the capital come alive.

By AVIVA BAR-AM
The view from the Convoy Ridge (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
The view from the Convoy Ridge
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
One day a few years ago, new recruits from the Golani Brigade met with a veteran from the Palmah. The older man, well into his 80s, told his rapt audience real-life tales about the War of Independence.
When he mentioned how often wounded soldiers died on the battlefield because there was no way to get them to a medical facility, one of the soldiers raised his hand. “Why didn’t they call for helicopters to come and pick them up?” he inquired.
Perhaps the soldier spoke in jest – and perhaps not. For in an age of hi-tech, virtual battles and sophisticated weapons, how can youth truly comprehend what our elders went through in 1948 to gain independence for the State of Israel? Hopefully, at least one major episode in the war will never be forgotten: the Arab siege of Jerusalem and the battles for the single road that led to the Holy City. For located within one of the Jewish National Fund’s most innovative parks are nature walks, overlooks and exciting virtual figures that make this important episode come alive. The park, which stretches from the Judean Plains to the Jerusalem Hills, is named for and dedicated to late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. He commanded the Palmah’s Harel Brigade, whose main task after its establishment on April 16, 1948, was to defend the corridor leading to Jerusalem.
It all started with a landmark decision by the United Nations on November 2, 1947, to divide the Land of Israel into two states, and the Jews in the British Mandate of Palestine gave expression to their joy. Drunk with happiness, they poured out into the streets, dancing and singing all night long.
Understandable though it was, their jubilation was just a tad premature, for Arabs everywhere categorically refused to accept the plan. Only one day after the UN decision to partition the country, an Egged bus traveling from Netanya to Jerusalem was ambushed by Arabs.
Five people were brutally murdered in what turned out to be the start of an 18-month Arab onslaught against the Jews. Six thousand men, women and children, fully 1 percent of the Israeli population in 1948, were to lose their lives in a grueling war for independence.
Almost immediately, the Arab High Command made a conscious decision to focus on Jerusalem. Knowing that conquest of the holy city with its 100,000 Jewish inhabitants would be difficult, it was decided to cut off the city’s main artery, the route by which it received food, water and weapons.
This Independence Day, why not take a two-hour circular hike along Convoy Ridge (Reches Hashayarot or Shluhat Shayarot) in Rabin Park for a front-row view of the obstacles that faced Jewish vehicles trying to get into besieged Jerusalem? Finish your day with a visit to the unique Trailblazers Monument and picnic in an unusual recreation area, all located in Rabin Park.
To begin your hike, take Highway 1 and turn at the Shoresh Interchange towards Beit Meir (Route 3955). Continue until you reach a sign for Burma Road and park next to the picnic tables. The path on your left leads to the Masrek Nature Reserve; you are going in the other direction.
On your walk, you will be visiting several overlooks and two of 30 strategic spots that stood above the main road to Jerusalem. These sites are called mishlatim, which translates loosely as “strategic posts.” There are plenty of trees near the path but not a lot of shade, so bring hats and water. The trail ranges from hard-packed dirt to rather rocky.
A few minutes after you begin your trek, you will come to a junction. The path leading straight ahead is the one on which you will return at the end of your hike. You turn left, to the route marked as a jeep road (“4x4”).
Already at the beginning of your hike you will notice spring flowers. Most obvious are the bright red everlasting (dam hamaccabim) blossoms. No less beautiful are the bicolored viper’s bugloss in pink and purple.
Turn right next to two large lovely carob trees. The sign for “Shluhat Shayarot,” in Hebrew, bears the Palmah Harel symbol. Now you begin a steep ascent.
You will see two different species of plants from the carrot family along the trail. Both consist of a cluster of smaller flowers forming a large white blossom meant to attract insects. They also have an additional trick up their stalks: at least one bud turns black and masquerades as a bug in a ploy to attract hesitant pollinators.
To your left, on top of the hill, is Beit Meir, a moshav built over the Arab village of Beit Mahsir. Conquered in 1948, Beit Mahsir was the largest village in the area and took an active part in the Arab blockade of Jerusalem.
When you reach the top of the ascent, you will see a fork in the road with one arrow pointing to Mishlat 21 and another to Mishlat 16. You will be coming back here soon. Continue on to Mishlat 21, passing several signs on the left – you will see them later. Continue to an overlook and stop to rest on the benches.
Mishlat 21 is an excellent height from which to view the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road below. During the War of Independence, this was a much narrower, twolane road surrounded by the steep Jerusalem Hills. Known by its Arabic name of Bab el-Wad (Gateway to the Wadi – sha’ar hagai), it was Jerusalem’s lifeline in 1947 and 1948.
To prevent Jewish vehicles from reaching Jerusalem, Arabs in the villages up here in the hills used an alarm system they called faz’a. Whenever they spotted a Jewish vehicle on this road, hundreds of Arab villagers would swoop down from the hills, block the road with boulders and hide among the trees. When the driver stopped to clear the way, other vehicles were forced to wait behind him. That’s when the Arabs would attack. 
Armored convoys called “sandwiches” were the next stage in the Jewish attempt to get through to the city. But, like the big trucks you see below, these heavy vehicles had to shift gears to begin the slow ascent to Jerusalem. Vehicles following behind crept along at a snail’s pace, giving assailants plenty of opportunity to climb inside and kill everyone in sight.
The book Pillar of Fire includes a dramatic description by Yona Golani, a convoy driver who managed to make it through the war alive. He related his fear, the sweat pouring down his face as rifle fire on both sides of the cars produced a horrifying echo within.
When he was asked what gave him the strength to drive to Jerusalem again and again, he replied that his reception by the residents made it all worthwhile.
For, although they were not literally dying of starvation, the population at one point was reduced to eating wild plants, and water was severely rationed. (This period in the city’s history is the source of the well-known Jerusalem siege mentality, and for many long years the capital was known to be unusually economical with water.) 
In early May, Jewish troops captured the mishlatim here, on Convoy Ridge, and gained control of the hills above Bab el-Wad. But in mid-May, when the British left the country (and Israel declared its independence), they handed the fortress at Latrun to the Arabs, effectively cutting off all transportation to and from the coast. Despite repeated attempts, Israel failed to capture Latrun.
Jerusalem came under siege once again. Yet it became almost impossible for Jewish convoys to run the deadly Arab gauntlet. Although a handful of Hagana forces occasionally succeeded in dislodging Arab elements from some points on the heights, the vastly outnumbered Jewish fighters could not prevent the positions from being retaken.
The situation appeared hopeless.
A small sign on the ground provides you with a few of the words to Haim Guri’s haunting Independence War song “Bab el-Wad.” Try to get it on your cellphone and listen as you gaze at the highway below. The words tear at the heartstrings: “Bab el-Wad, remember our names forever... our dead lay there on the roadside.... ” WITH RESIDENTS of the holy city suffering from hunger, thirst and a dearth of medical supplies and weapons, it became vital to find a way to circumvent Latrun. They found it – in the “Burma Road.”
Clamber up the rocks behind you all the way to the top, almost to the signs you passed on your way here. Down a few rocks there is another bench, and below you can get a look at part of Burma Road – the brown trail accessible only to jeeps.
Some say that the Burma Road became a reality almost by accident – because some of the troops stationed near the Jerusalem Hills wanted to reach the coast and, familiar with the terrain, managed to make it back to their posts after traipsing through valleys, fields and mountains.
Once their commanding officers learned of this feat, more soldiers were sent to scout out a route that they could turn into a road along which supplies could be trucked into Jerusalem.
But the more likely story has two groups of soldiers being sent, from opposite directions, to find a reliable bypass.
They are said to have met at the Susin Spring on May 30, 1948. Immediately afterwards, work began on the 12-kilometer bypass known as the Burma Road.
A journalist had said it reminded him of the Burma Road, a far longer bypass that helped lift the Japanese siege of China during World War II. And the name stuck.
Work on the new road had to be done stealthily in an area that couldn’t be seen by the Arabs at Latrun. Unable to use explosives, teams of soldiers and civilian artisans began building a road using only picks, shovels, hoes, wooden mallets and chisels. Smothered in their own dust, they worked tirelessly under the noses of the enemy.
Until this difficult ascent could be made passable for vehicles, trucks bearing provisions had to stop at the bottom of the hill. Porters carried supplies on their backs, all the way to the top of the hill, where they were met by other volunteers from Jerusalem. Here everything was transferred to the new porters, who took them down the unfinished twists and turns of a route called the serpentinot – from the Latin word for “snake.” At the bottom, they were sent on trucks to Jerusalem.
Now return to the fork and head toward Mishlat 16. On your way, stop at a bench under an enormous pine tree.
From here, you can see Modi’in and the entire coastal plain in one direction, the highway in another. Then continue to Mishlat 16.
Like the other mishlatim, this one, too, was taken during an operation in early May. It was called the Maccabee Campaign, for the 34-year-old commander responsible for the convoys: Maccabee Mutzeri, killed on April 23 while attempting to bring supplies to Jerusalem.
Monuments at the site bear the names of different campaigns carried out by Palmah Harel. Continue on the road. Turn right at the T junction much farther on and return to your car.
Thanks to the new Neveh Ilan interchange, it is easy to reach your next point of interest in Rabin Park. Return to Highway 1, and at Shoresh turn towards Jerusalem. Exit at Route 425, stay right, and at the rotary turn back in the direction of Tel Aviv.
Turn right again at Shoresh and right at the rotary. Work is being carried out on the highway, and you can’t go very far. But you can stop next to the amazing Trailblazers’ Monument, dedicated to those brave men and women who tried to break the Arab siege of Jerusalem during the War of Independence. Located high on the slopes above the highway, it stretches its silver, metal-coated limbs poignantly towards the holy city and carries the inscription: “Memorial to the trailblazers and their defenders,” followed by a passage from Isaiah: “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet” (62:1).
Climb the steps or take the ramp for a good view of the monument. Then, if you like, follow the gravel trail all the way to the top of the slope. Or drive on just a bit to reach a picnic and recreation area featuring unusual representations of armored vehicles. Look for a narrow stone path representing the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Highway that ends in a water fountain.
Extra: You can follow a portion of the Burma Road that is accessible to regular vehicles and full of life-sized “soldiers” and road builders and all kinds of sculpted vehicles. Begin at Harel Overlook, along Route 44, and part of the park. Stop at the (wheelchair-accessible) overlook before getting onto Burma Road. It features a picnic site and a large topographical model carved in sand: As they didn’t have any decent maps of the Jerusalem Hills, Palmah commanders used sand tables like this one to plan their battles.