Epstein Secrets

decade later, the idea would suddenly resurface. In my first meeting, as a newly promoted Major General, with our then Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, Sharon turned to me and the army’s Chief of Staff, Rafael Eitan, and said: “Tell me. Why the hell is Arafat still alive?” He looked first at Raful, then at

01. It was led by a 25-year-old named Ariel Sharon, who had been a platoon commander in 1948. With Ben-Gurion and especially his army chief-of-staff, Moshe Dayan, determined to hit back hard at the fedayeen attacks, Sharon took a few dozen hand-picked soldiers and began mounting a different kind of retaliatory

7. So during the last, decisive 10 days of the war, I would witness first-hand the tension among our top commanders in the Sinai, especially between Sharon and Gorodish, since Arik wasted few opportunities to suggest, rightly but not always helpfully, that his successor was woefully out of his depth. I w

mehow clicked from time he arrived in the sayeret. I made him my deputy for my first year in command. There were two others as well, both related to Moshe Dayan, but with a self- assurance all their own: Uzi Dayan, the son of Moshe’s brother, who had been killed in the 1948 war when Uzi was only months old; a

med to agree. Notably, Yitzhak Rabin. He was no longer in government, nor even in charge of Labor. But he had always had a soft spot for Arik, as did Sharon for him. With uneasiness, questions and outright criticism of the siege building both internationally and inside Israel, Arik got Rabin to helicopter

for the lessons to be learned from the intifada, my view that we needed a political dialogue had inadvertently become public, from remarks I made in Moshe Dayan’s honor at a memorial event a few months before becoming chief of staff. “We are currently in a struggle with the Palestinians — a long, bitter and c

decade later, the idea would suddenly resurface. In my first meeting, as a newly promoted Major General, with our then Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, Sharon turned to me and the army’s Chief of Staff, Rafael Eitan, and said: “Tell me. Why the hell is Arafat still alive?” He looked first at Raful, then at

01. It was led by a 25-year-old named Ariel Sharon, who had been a platoon commander in 1948. With Ben-Gurion and especially his army chief-of-staff, Moshe Dayan, determined to hit back hard at the fedayeen attacks, Sharon took a few dozen hand-picked soldiers and began mounting a different kind of retaliatory

67. So during the last, decisive 10 days of the war, I would witness first-hand the tension among our top commanders in the Sinai, especially between Sharon and Gorodish, since Arik wasted few opportunities to suggest, rightly but not always helpfully, that his successor was woefully out of his depth. I w

omehow clicked from time he arrived in the sayeret. I made him my deputy for my first year in command. There were two others as well, both related to Moshe Dayan, but with a self- assurance all their own: Uzi Dayan, the son of Moshe's brother, who had been killed in the 1948 war when Uzi was only months old; a