Eliahu Hakim and Eliahu Bet-Zouri are figures in a tragic history. The two Jewish youths—the one 18, the other 22—who assassinated Lord Moyne, British Minister Resident in Cairo last autumn, are dead. But the deed for which they died and the motives which led them to such a suicidal act must be understood in correct perspective if we are to understand at all that vast complex of human hopes and human desperations which is Jewish Palestine today.

The noblest voice in Britain called them gangsters. They stole across the borders of Palestine into Egypt—one in the uniform of a British soldier—and in stealth they made their plans and in stealth they ambushed His Majesty’s minister, and shot and killed him. They were caught and they were tried. Their trial was held on an international stage with political intrigues and opposing nationalisms clashing behind a veil of wartime censorship. They were found guilty and they were hanged. What would lead two Jews, belonging to a people which has suffered such a woeful martyrdom to violence, to turn to violence themselves?

The assassination of Lord Moyne by these two youths who were reared and educated in Palestine, who belonged to a generation which came into being after the Balfour Declaration, represented an explosion of forces which have long existed in Palestine. It marked the high point of resistance—albeit resistance expressed by the act of murder perpetrated by a tiny extremist minority—against what appears to be a slow whittling down of the entire concept of an independent Jewish Palestine. But this resistance assumes many aspects. Taken together they form the somber backdrop against which the deed of Hakim and Bet-Zouri must be viewed.

Palestine’s Jews are bitterly opposed to the British White Paper of 1939. Not only does it summarily close Palestine to thousands of European refugees who have indicated their wish to go there, but it restricts the Jews to settlement in an area representing six per cent of the total area of Palestine west of the Jordan river, and limits them in number to one-third the present population. That opposition, as opposition, is in itself resistance. But it is the resistance of a disciplined people who deliberately accepted a program of self-restraint and non-violence.

How long that resistance will remain within the bounds of non-violence, now that the European war is ended and a full struggle against the restrictions of British colonial policy cannot any longer be considered sabotage of the war, is another matter. The truth is that an extremist minority has already been waging an undeclared war against Great Britain, and in that struggle the assassination of Lord Moyne is simply an episode, a most tragic episode. Like the majority of Palestine’s Jews, these extremists look upon Great Britain as an alien power in Palestine; but unlike the majority, they refuse to be disciplined and they repudiate self-restraint. Their number is small: perhaps 2,000 or less; and they see themselves as a Jewish underground, comparable to the French Maquis, fighting on their native soil against an occupying enemy—Great Britain.

There is a Graustarkian quality about them. Some of these extremists wear arm bands. When arrested they claim they are in uniform and demand treatment as prisoners of war. They issue communiques couched in military language. “Our soldiers yesterday attacked three police stations, inflicting heavy casualties,” reads one. “Seven of our soldiers were wounded. Ten members of the enemy forces suffered casualties.” Politically, too, they differ from the majority, for they belong to an extreme offshoot of right-wing Revisionism. In organization they are divided into two groups who use different methods for the same aim—the expulsion from Palestine of Great Britain.

The larger of the two is the Irgun Zvai Leumi, or National Military Organization, with a membership of perhaps 1,500. It devotes itself to sabotaging the machinery of British colonial government in Palestine. It seeks not only to hamper the smooth functioning of the government by destroying police stations and public buildings, but also to harass British government officials in Palestine until no Englishman in his right senses would willingly accept a post in Palestine. The IZL makes a point of not harming life or limb. It placards buildings with leaflets reading, “Warning! Please evacuate! This building has been mined.”

Far more serious are the activities of the smaller group, to which Hakim and Bet-Zouri belonged: the Fighters for Freedom of Israel, or the so-called Stern gang. Named for Abraham Stem, a Polish-born revolutionary who was killed in Tel-Aviv a few years ago, the Sternists called for the immediate establishment of a Jewish state by force. Stern maintained that negotiations and persuasion were futile. A splinter group of the IZL, the Sternists are said to number less than 150, divided into cells of nine men each so that no member can be acquainted with more than eight others. Hakim and Bet-Zouri were strangers to each other until they met in Cairo. At the door of the Sternists is laid the attempted assassination on August 8, 1944, of Sir Harold MacMichael, the out-going High Commissioner, who was shot from ambush and wounded outside Jerusalem.

To the visitor in Palestine little of this extremist activity shows on the surface. He can have little personal knowledge of the constant search made by the Criminal Investigation Department of the Palestine Police, the road blocks, the arms raids upon collectives and villages. The Jewish community, denouncing the extremists, gives what assistance it can in the campaign to drive them out. It makes clear that terrorism achieves nothing but gives the enemies of Palestine potent weapons with which to attack Jewish aspirations in Palestine, and Jews as a whole.

But the problem has infinite complications. It is not easy for a Jew in Palestine to turn informer and reveal to the British police—for the Jewish Agency has no police powers—the hiding place of an 18-year-old youth whose uncle died in some German horror camp because the British White Paper did not permit him to take refuge in Palestine. “There are many ways to fight injustice,” said Bet-Zouri. “We know of them. We know you can circulate petitions to open the doors of Palestine, you can send delegations to the government, you can appeal to the conscience of the world. But if our group has given up these methods and turned to the gun, it is because we have been forced to turn to the gun. For who would listen to us? To whom could we turn?” And one must not forget that World War II having proved the failure of appeasement, the offensive became accepted everywhere as the best means to an end. This, as well as the fact that the resistance movement had been glorified throughout Europe, encouraged Palestine’s extremists. They saw themselves as anti-appeasers and resistance fighters.

On the evening of November 6, 1944, a telephone call was received in the editorial rooms of the Palestine Post, in Jerusalem. Lord Moyne had been critically wounded in Cairo by two unidentified gunmen. They had waited in the garden of his home until he arrived in his car. When his driver, Lance Corporal Arthur Fuller, leaped upon the assailants, he was shot to death. Lord Moyne had been rushed to a hospital. The nationality of the assassins was not known but “they are not Egyptians.”

Additional news was spelled out a few hours later on the Reuters teletype in the Post’s editorial rooms. This writer was in the office of the newspaper at the time. It was a tense moment. Only a few weeks before there had been the abortive attempt on Sir Harold’s life. Sir Harold had been on the black list of the Sternists for a long time. Lord Moyne, as British Colonial Secretary during the time of the Struma and Patria tragedies, was presumed to have been responsible for British policy in Palestine. There were rumors, too, that he had evolved a new partition plan for Palestine. The identity of his Cairo assailants seemed inescapably certain.

By morning all Palestine knew the truth. For the latest Stern communiqué, hastily printed on yellow paper, was found under doors and pasted on telegraph poles. The language was still vainglorious and melodramatic. “Two of our brave Fighters for Freedom, specially selected from volunteers for a specially dangerous mission, successfully achieved their objective and liquidated an important and vital member of the enemy forces, Lord Moyne. Our brave raiders have been captured in the course of their duty.”

Lord Moyne died early that night.

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The Trial, Act I

You must see Hakim and Bet-Zouri as they stand in the prisoners’ dock behind sharp iron palings, behind bristling bayonets, guarded by six giant impassive Egyptian policemen. They are bareheaded. They wear no ties, and their shirts are open at the neck. Their youth strikes at one like a sword. Hakim, thin, tall, dark-skinned, with burning black eyes, his hands clasped behind his back, brooding and preoccupied in his martyrdom; and Bet-Zouri, blond and sturdy and ruddy-faced, with clear blue eyes and a British-cut mustache, standing with head up, chin thrust out and fists clenched at his side, trembling with power and indignation.

They want no attorneys to defend them. Asher Levitsky, a noted Palestine lawyer, flies down from Jerusalem at the insistence of Hakim’s father. He pleads with them. They must confess that temporary insanity drove them to their act and throw themselves on the mercy of the court. They are young, they have been misguided, they may thus escape the gallows. But they refuse, and Levitsky resigns from the case the same day. Hakim and Bet-Zouri killed Lord Moyne purposefully and deliberately. If they throw themselves on the mercy of the court that purpose will never be explained, and by their act of evasion they would themselves impugn the justice of their deed. For their deed, they maintain, is not a crime. “I am not an ordinary criminal acting against society,” Bet-Zouri says. “My aim is to destroy a political regime after which society will be able to exist under a better, superior regime. I cannot be compared with an ordinary criminal acting for personal interests.” Bet-Zouri says simply: “I love life and I love it well, but first of all, honor must be served.”

They ask that their case be heard before an international court. “We have great faith in the justice of the Egyptian courts, but we respectfully submit that our case is one that transcends the boundaries of any country,” says Bet-Zouri. “Rightfully it should be heard before a court based only on pure morals and pure justice.”

The president of the five-man court, a tall, lean, paternal figure, says gently, “Certainly the accused knows that such a court does not exist.” Bet-Zouri smiles sadly. “We know it,” he replies. “But it should exist for the welfare of all the world.”

Three distinguished Egyptian attorneys have been appointed to defend them—this despite their insistence upon defending themselves: Abdel Fattah el Said, former president of the Egyptian Court of Appeals; Tewfik Doss Pasha, several times member of the Egyptian cabinet, said by many to be the most gifted attorney in Egypt; Hassan Djeddaoui, a master pleader. The boys consult with them, but it is known that they are preparing their own case. They ask for and receive the Bible, the Modern Evolutionary History of Egypt, the Egyptian Penal Code, the Days of Italy’s Renaissance by Beilinson and the Peel Report.

Admission to the trial is by card only. Visitors are carefully screened. The white walled courtroom is jammed. Iron grills protect the windows. Guards with fixed bayonets stand before every door. Outside the courtroom, the corridors are roped off and police stand solidly shoulder to shoulder, bayonets ready. On the first day there is great excitement. A rumor grows that Sternists have placed time-bombs in the courthouse. Before court convenes the police and army engineers examine every inch of the building. They use mine-detectors. Nothing is found. The trial begins.

The problem of language first concerns the court. “Proceedings will be in Arabic, the official language of Egypt,” the presiding judge announces. Bet-Zouri demurs: “Hebrew is also an official language, and we shall speak it.” There is discussion on this point. Finally it is agreed that the accused may speak Hebrew and their testimony will be translated’ into Arabic. The court will speak Arabic; its rulings will be translated into Hebrew for the benefit of the accused. All witnesses will speak Arabic. But the first interpreter chosen cannot un-understand colloquial Hebrew, and the second interpreter cannot understand colloquial Arabic—Bet-Zouri, astonishingly enough, trips up both interpreters, the first for his bad Hebrew, the second for his bad Arabic—and the proceedings must be adjourned until after lunch so that an adequate interpreter can be found.

The audience—distinguished Cairenes, members of foreign embassies, representatives of the world’s press, a scattering of Egyptian law students—meets in the corridors. Bus boys hustle through the halls with tiny cups of strong Turkish coffee. The sound of French, Arabic, English, Hebrew merge into a confused background of sound. There is speculation as to the political implications of the case—the reactions of the Arabs, of the Jews, of Great Britain, of the United States, the embarrassing position of Egypt in a case which might have international repercussions. There is the simple question posed: will this case be used as a hammer to belabor certain heads? Would anti-British Egyptian circles use it to belabor the British by giving these boys a world-forum from which to make anti-British charges which they themselves would like to make but dared not? Would certain anti-Zionist British elements use the case to belabor the Jews by identifying, all Jewish Palestine with terrorism, and thus attempt to justify the White Paper and the contention that the Jews could not be trusted with a Jewish National Home? Would certain Arab nationalists use it to belabor both the Jews and their own liberal elements by taking advantage of this opportunity to draw attention away from the poverty and exploitation of their own people?

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The Trial, Act II

The trial resumes. Hakim is specifically charged with the murder of Lord Moyne. He fired the fatal shot. Bet-Zouri is specifically charged with the murder of Lance Corporal Fuller. Both admit conspiracy to kill Lord Moyne, but Bet-Zouri denies planning to kill Fuller. “Though I shot at Fuller, I did not intend to kill him. We were given orders by our organization to kill Lord Moyne but to harm no one else. I did not mean to kill a man in the uniform of the British army, for he was fighting our common enemy, Germany. We are more sorry than we can say that Fuller was killed.”

He describes how he and Hakim met in Cairo, Hakim coming to the city first, he two weeks later. They carried a photograph of Lord Moyne because they did not know him. They rented bicycles and traversed the route Lord Moyne took each day from home to office and home. They noted his car drove daily through the Midan Ismeliah, a busy intersection, on the way to Lord Moyne’s home in fashionable Zam?lik. They thought of attempting their deed at the intersection, for they could easily escape in the crowd. But their bullets might injure a passerby—an Egyptian. They might also be forced to kill Fuller to halt the car. Therefore, because their orders were to harm no one else, they agreed to carry out their assignment at Lord Moyne’s home, although it meant great personal danger for them because the only avenue of escape led across a bridge guarded by police.

He tells how Lord Moyne’s limousine rolled up the driveway; how he and Hakim ordered the occupants to lie down; how Fuller leaped out and tried to seize the revolver from his hand.

“My brain ordered my finger not to shoot to kill, but only to wound Fuller,” Bet-Zouri says, speaking slowly. Then, reflectively, as though thinking aloud: “I have asked myself many times since if I did not mean to kill Fuller, why did I fire three times at him? And I have concluded that it was habit. When we train in Palestine, the members of our organization are accustomed to firing three times at a target. I repeat I did not mean to kill Fuller and I regret it more than I can say.”

He describes how he and Hakim raced to their bicycles and began to flee, and how they were trapped on the bridge, and how he was seized, finally, after an exchange of shots with an Egyptian constable. He grows indignant. “I must take issue with the court on the charge that I attempted to kill the Egyptian constable when he pursued me. I fired at the tires of his motorcycle because I did not want to hurt him. Our orders were not to hurt any Egyptian. We have no quarrel with the Egyptians.” This was an Egyptian court: Bet-Zouri makes his point. And now he is doubly indignant: “I resent the intimation that I attempted to kill him but failed because of bad marksmanship. If you do not believe what I am telling you, it can very easily be proved.” He leans forward, resting his elbow in the space between two palings, gazing directly at the presiding justice, “If the court will now place a revolver in my hand. . . .” He raises his voice above the sudden hum of astonished amusement—“if the court will give me a gun now, I will promise to place six bullets. . . .” He pauses, and his eyes meet those of the presiding justice directly in front of him. He stretches forth his arm and points at the presiding justice. “. . . I will promise to place six bullets into the face. . . .” Pause, again. “. . . of that clock . . . above your head!”

It is done dramatically and effectively. The audience chuckles. The presiding justice squirms in his chair, and grins sheepishly. The prosecuting attorney, seated to the left of the court, smiles, and catching the attention of the presiding justice, taps on his chest as if to say, “Me, too.” The presiding justice turns to Bet-Zouri and says gravely, “That will not be necessary.”

Bet-Zouri continues. He speaks quietly. He has a crumpled sheet of notes in his left hand, but he rarely consults them. There is misrule in Palestine, Bet-Zouri charges. And he goes on to say that as a boy in Tel-Aviv, he remembers watching a demonstration from the balcony of his father’s house. He saw police club demonstrators. “And I asked, what are these strangers doing in my country? Why should a man leave his home and family in a far-off land and come into my country to do these things?” There is a rustling in the courtroom as Egyptian turns to Egyptian. This is an Egyptian courtroom; members of the court, yes, even some of the defense attorneys, in their youth were guilty of anti-British terrorism. One of the distinguished defense attorneys has written an autobiographical sketch for use by the correspondents, and listed high among his achievements is the notice of a term in prison for “anti-British activities.”

Bet-Zouri speaks of English character. He has never visited England—“that land where men fight for freedom, that land that is the mother of the Magna Charta and Habeas Corpus”—and so he does not know “what the Englishman is like in his own country.” Perhaps, Bet-Zouri observes, the analogy once drawn by a friend of his who was similarly on trial, might be cited. “My friend said that the Englishman is like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In his own country he is a gentleman of the highest order, but when he goes abroad into the colonies, he seems to take on another character. He drinks from the cup of rule until he becomes so drunk on the wine of power that he thinks he is the god of the native.” The situation in Palestine, Bet-Zouri says, reminds him of a book by “one of the finest Englishmen I know”—Jack London. That book told the story of a shipwrecked man who was brought aboard another ship which, he learns, is a complete little world ruled by the captain. No one dared dispute the captain. The captain listened to no one. If one wished to disagree with the captain, one had to fight. “The muscles of the captain were the law on that ship,” says Bet-Zouri. “And so it is today in Palestine. The muscles of the police are the law. They will not listen. They—”

“Stop!” The presiding justice interrupts. “Stop this! You are making a political speech. What has this to do with the killing of Lord Moyne? Get down to facts. What has all this to do with the killing of Lord Moyne?”

Bet-Zouri’s face flushes red, he takes one step forward, he levels his accusing finger at the presiding judge, and in a ringing voice of tremendous dignity, cries out:

I am trying to explain! Our deed stemmed from our motives, and our motives stemmed from our ideals, and if we prove our ideals are right and just, then our deed was just!

The words hang in the air. The courtroom is still. In the audience one Egyptian whispers, “A strong man! A strong man!” And there is a woman’s hushed voice: “What a pity that a boy like that was led to do such a terrible thing.”

“I am trying to explain my ideals!” Bet-Zouri repeats. “My causes are my ideals. I acted in accord with justice and morals. I say I appeal to a law that has not yet been written. I do not ask mercy. I ask justice!”

The presiding justice stares at him, looks down at his blotter, looks up again, and says quietly, in Arabic, “Continue.”

Bet-Zouri steps back, and continues. He is composed again. Subtly, in ways difficult to describe, one feels he has the courtroom with him: presiding justice and prosecutor, clerks and interpreters, the audience, the correspondents. One cannot condone murder. This boy has committed murder. Yet the courtroom is his.

If there are those, Bet-Zouri says, who declare that as Jews his group cannot oppose Great Britain because Great Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, “then I say to them that the Fighters for Freedom of Israel fought for Palestine as sons of Palestine before the Balfour Declaration.” They therefore had a right to protest Great Britain’s failure to carry out the League of Nation’s Mandate for Palestine, he asserts. He plays on a phrase, “that is the law,” as he makes many charges. He charges that the British police killed Abraham Stem, at 30 Dizengoff Street, in Tel-Aviv, “deliberately and with premeditation.” When the police do that, he says, “that is the law.” He charges that Menahim Previs, an x 8-year old Jewish boy, had been clubbed to death in a Jerusalem demonstration in 1939. When the police do that, “that is the law.” “Young Palestine is full of initiative,” he says. “Its citizens seek its progress. The Jewish people are doing wonderful things in Palestine but the government is not ready to hear any suggestions. It will not listen.”

He appeals for a chance to call five witnesses from Palestine who, he says, will testify as to conditions in Palestine. The court accedes to this request. But three of the five are in political jail, and they cannot be extradited.

Then Hakim speaks. His voice is strained, hesitant and the words come uncertainly. But there is a brooding power in the simplicity of his words. “The Bible says, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Why, therefore, did we kill?” He expands upon Bet-Zouri’s theme. It was the only way they could fight. They had tried everything, but no one would listen. “There was no other way.” He says, his head up, his hands still clasped behind his back: “In the name of justice we ask this court to say we are innocent and to discharge us.” Had they not been seized, he says, their organization would have taken the responsibility for the assassination. It would have issued a bulletin giving the full facts of the murder. “We ask to be declared innocent.”

“How did you receive instructions from your organization?” the presiding justice asks.

“Our methods are secret,” Hakim says seriously. I cannot disclose them to anyone who is not a member of our organization.

The presiding justice toys with a letter-opener.

“Are any other members of your organization now in Egypt?”

Hakim smiles at this. “I am sorry, but I can not tell you that.”

He seems ready to speak again, but Bet-Zouri leans toward him and tugs at his shirt. Hakim sits down, silent.

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The Trial, Act III

Now the defense attorneys take over. Each takes his turn pleading for the boys. Abdel Fattah el Said, the former President of the Egyptian Court of Appeals, makes his position clear. “I had a struggle with myself on this matter before I took this case,” he begins. “I have agreed to defend Hakim because I am convinced that Hakim acted because of moral motives. We all deplore Lord Moyne’s death. But I wish to make it clear that the accused had nothing against Lord Moyne personally. His action was taken against the government that Lord Moyne represented,” the defense continues.

He cites the plight of European Jewry: Germany, Rumania, Poland, Yugoslavia; pogroms, massacres, cruelty. He speaks of the Patria and the Struma, of Jews drowning in sight of their promised land because they were not allowed to enter. “I call to your mind these miserable refugees aboard the Struma, who had the sky overhead, the sea underfoot, and before them Palestine. Had they been Germans or Japanese they would have been put ashore and interned. I have great admiration for British character and it is this that gives me courage to say that the measures taken in Palestine were often defective; events such as these undoubtedly had a destructive effect on the spirit of these young boys in Palestine, and if you add to that certain acts within Palestine—such acts as the accused have charged—it is possible to understand the reactions of these boys.”

He speaks of the protests made in British Parliament on behalf of the Jews. “If the British people themselves rebelled, how could the Jews not do so? Even we Egyptians query whether this is not a blind policy to drive back refugees when the most elementary feelings of humanity dictate that they should be welcomed.”

He recalls the cases of Schwarzbard and Frankfurter, Jewish youths who were driven to murder because they felt there was no other path for them to take, and who were not given the death penalty for their act.

“But is murder the only way to protest in Palestine?” demands the judge.

“The Jews tried everything but nobody has heard them,” is the reply. “Some of them came to the conclusion that it was necessary to sacrifice themselves so as to appeal to the world to save their people.”

Then Tewfik Doss Pasha, the former cabinet minister, takes the floor. “These boys believe themselves pure patriots seeking the independence of Palestine. They are unconcerned with Zionist ideals and the Zionist program. These boys carried out the instructions of a terrorist group which wanted the Moyne murder to echo around the world. Their crime is like the crime of a deceived lover. Great Britain’s act in closing the doors of Palestine deceived them: it prevented the admission of thousands of suffering Jews, and so they killed because they were deceived. We ask for mercy for these boys.”

Bet-Zouri’s voice cuts through the room: “Not mercy, but justice!”

Hassan Djeddauoi takes up the pleading. Eloquent beyond eloquence, during his long speech he breaks down and weeps. He reviews the tragic odyssey of the Jews through thirty centuries. “Can we after this not pay heed to the state of soul of these young people? Day and night they heard of the suffering of their brothers and sisters. Is it astonishing that they went mad? Is it astonishing that their spirit went astray?

“I remind you that we are in the presence of two young boys born seven years after the Balfour Declaration. They grew up with that declaration in their eyes and in their ears; they drank it in their mother’s milk; they breathed it in the atmosphere of their Holy Land, and they saw, with their eyes, the realization of the four-thousand-years-old dream of a Jewish homeland. The passion of these young people is patriotism, exaggerated, perhaps badly guided patriotism, but patriotism none the less. These youths risked death according to their belief for the sake of their country. They were wrong. But out of that very wrong rises the proof of their innocence of soul.”

In the course of the trial a cable is received from the United States. It is reportedly from an American Jewish organization and it urges that the Egyptian court give the boys a just trial. Until now Arabic commentators have been silent. But now telegrams from Arabic organizations flood the court. They protest that the defense of these two boys in this Cairo courtroom amounts to a sponsorship of the Zionist case, and that it is intolerable that Cairo, the center of pan-Islam and the heart of the Arab league, should become a sounding board for Zionism.

And then, finally, the case is closed.

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Dénouement

This writer asks Bet-Zouri: “Did you say everything you wished to say?” Bet-Zouri thinks for a moment and replies, “About 85 per cent.” He and Hakim are far from repentant. A British journalist approaches them. For him they sign a statement reading, “What we did was right!” Their signatures are large and firm.

On the final day they are brought into court to hear their sentence. The presiding justice speaks briefly. “The facts in the case have been turned over to the Mufti,” he announces. Court is adjourned.

The Mufti is Egypt’s highest religious authority. Only in case of a death sentence are the facts involved referred to him, for under Moslem religious law he alone is empowered to send any man to his death. Bet-Zouri and Hakim, it is clear, have been found guilty and given the death sentence.

Hakim does not seem to realize what the court’s statement means. But Bet-Zouri does. He is seated, and when the Presiding Justice speaks, he seems, for an instant, to slump back into his chair, his mouth open slightly, his teeth apart; he sits blankly for the space of a few heartbeats, and then someone speaks to him. He recovers himself, and smiles.

An attorney gets to his feet and begins to walk toward the two boys. He is stopped by another of the defense attorneys. “If you mean to tell them what this means, don’t do it now,” he says. “I think they understand. But if they do not, let them not know it as long as possible.”

They were hanged one gray morning in Cairo. They went to their death with a Hebrew prayer on their lips. Eliahu Hakim—dead at 18. Eliahu Bet-Zouri—dead at 22.

On the last day of the trial, before they knew the verdict, photographers took pictures of them. Bet-Zouri stopped one of the photographers. “Would you send a copy of the picture to my father?” he asked. “The address is easy: Bet-Zouri, Postoffice, Tel-Aviv.” And then he added: “Tell my father not to think too badly of me.”

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