Epstein Secrets

ill alive?” He looked first at Raful, then at me, and added: “When I was 20 years younger than you are, I never waited for someone like Ben-Gurion or Dayan to ask me to plan an operation. I would plan it! Then I’d take it to them and say, you’re the politicians, you decide, but if you say yes, we'll do i

ge was an important asset. I was the sayeret’s only lock-picker. But all of us had been recruited in the much same way that I was. It was how the top Palmach units had been formed, and the way Sharon assembled Unit 101: friends recommending friends, in my case, my old yeled chutz schoolmate from the kibbut

d that youngsters not all that much older than me would have a critical role to play. I got a close-up look at the elite of the Zionist militias, the Palmach. It numbered something like 6,000, from a pre-state force totaling around 40,000. The Palmachniks were highly motivated, young political activists. T

ill alive?” He looked first at Raful, then at me, and added: “When I was 20 years younger than you are, I never waited for someone like Ben-Gurion or Dayan to ask me to plan an operation. I would plan it! Then I’d take it to them and say, you’re the politicians, you decide, but if you say yes, we'll do i

ge was an important asset. I was the sayeret’s only lock-picker. But all of us had been recruited in the much same way that I was. It was how the top Palmach units had been formed, and the way Sharon assembled Unit 101: friends recommending friends, in my case, my old yeled chutz schoolmate from the kibbut

d that youngsters not all that much older than me would have a critical role to play. I got a close-up look at the elite of the Zionist militias, the Palmach. It numbered something like 6,000, from a pre-state force totaling around 40,000. The Palmachniks were highly motivated, young political activists. T

ns. “A plane has been hijacked,” he said. “It’s heading for Lod. It will land in about 30 minutes. They’ve got hostages. Get to the airport. Dado and Dayan are on their way.” I called Danny Yatom and told him to get whoever was at the sayeret base to Lod as soon as possible. But most of the men were on

unter-terrorism adviser. Also from the fact that Chaim Bar-Lev’s successor as chief of staff was an old friend of the sayeret: Dado Elazar, Avraham’s Palmach comrade from 1948. Yet winning over the remaining doubters in the kirva was obviously going to take time. As so often during my years in uniform, ho

ndable. I was by no means the only former general to enter Israeli politics. Other chiefs-of-staff had gone on to play prominent roles in government: Dayan, Motta Gur and, of course, Rabin. But the fact that I was going directly into the cabinet, and so soon after leaving the army, was seen by the Israel

dead: his murder would leave a huge hole — in me, in all Israelis. He was an extraordinary mix of qualities: a brave officer, first in the pre-state Palmach and then the new Israeli army; a chief of staff and defense minister at critical periods in our history. Shy, even at times uncertain or hesitant, an

ns. "A plane has been hijacked," he said. "It's heading for Lod. It will land in about 30 minutes. They've got hostages. Get to the airport. Dado and Dayan are on their way." I called Danny Yatom and told him to get whoever was at the sayeret base to Lod as soon as possible. But most of the men were on t

unter-terrorism adviser. Also from the fact that Chaim Bar-Lev's successor as chief of staff was an old friend of the sayeret: Dado Elazar, Avraham's Palmach comrade from 1948. Yet winning over the remaining doubters in the kirya was obviously going to take time. As so often during my years in uniform, how

ndable. I was by no means the only former general to enter Israeli politics. Other chiefs-of-staff had gone on to play prominent roles in government: Dayan, Motta Gur and, of course, Rabin. But the fact that I was going directly into the cabinet, and so soon after leaving the army, was seen by the Israel

dead: his murder would leave a huge hole - in me, in all Israelis. He was an extraordinary mix of qualities: a brave officer, first in the pre-state Palmach and then the new Israeli army; a chief of staff and defense minister at critical periods in our history. Shy, even at times uncertain or hesitant, an