announcement that a call-up exercise was to be held. Arab armies be-
lieved that Israel was preparing for war and went to a state of high alert.
A rehearsal was held at the beginning of 1959, when the Israel Air
Force commander, Major General Ezer Weizman, and the director of
Military Intelligence(DMI), Major General Yehoshafat Harkabi,
proposed carrying out this kind of mobilization exercise. The chief of
the General Staff, Lieutenant General Haim Laskov, submitted the
plan for the exercise to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, who ap-
proved it. The head of the IDF Operations Directorate, Major Gen-
eral Meir Zorea, instructed that prior announcement of the exercise
be published in the press at least 48 hours in advance of its execution
to prevent panic in the Israeli population, and in the entire world,
which might believe that actual war was about to break out. However,
because of a communications failure between the Operations Direc-
torate and Field Security in MI, the press announcements about the
forthcoming mobilization exercise were not published. On the night
of 1 April 1959, Israel Radio broadcast a call-up of the reserves, with
the unwanted alarm resulting. Zorea and Harkabi were forced to re-
sign in the scandal’s aftermath.NILI.The Hebrew acronym for the biblical phrase netzah yisrael lo
yeshaker(“the Everlasting of Israel will not lie,” 1 Sam. 15:29) was the
name given to a Jewish espionage network established in Israel during
the last years of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. NILI was formed
in 1915 by Sarah Aaronsohn, her brother Aharon Aaronsohn, and
Avshalom Feinberg. Other key members were Yosef Lishanskyand
Naaman Belkind. The founders believed that by spying for the British
they could bring about a British victory over the Turks, who then ruled
Palestine, and thereby gain a Jewish state. The main mission of NILI
was to assist the British forces under General Edmund H. H. Allenby
to conquer Palestine, thus helping to realize Zionist aspirations.
For almost two years Aharon Aaronson, a botanist by training, en-
treated the British to accept information from him on the movements
of the Turkish army in Palestine and on the conditions of the terrain.
When approval was received, the entire burden of activating the NILI
underground fell to Aharon’s sister, Sarah, whose other siblings, apart
from Aharon himself—namely, Alexander, Shmuel, and Rivka—were
then abroad.NILI• 20706-102 (03) H-P.qxd 3/24/06 7:25 AM Page 207