Epstein Secrets

o other officers, whom I knew less well at first but who would become key members of my team. In their case, it was the younger one who joined first. Binyamin Netanyahu — Bibi, as everyone called him — had been a member of Amiram Levin’s team when I was Digli’s deputy. He’d also been a part of one of our several — th

m I knew less well at first but who would become key members of my team. In their case, it was the younger one who joined first. Binyamin Netanyahu — Bibi, as everyone called him — had been a member of Amiram Levin’s team when I was Digli’s deputy. He’d also been a part of one of our several — thankfull

training teams. When Danny Yatom left the following year to train as an armored officer, I made Yoni my deputy. However different in some ways, the Netanyahu brothers were close. They seemed almost driven, to excel and to succeed. As I got to know them both, I sensed that the drive did not come merely from

come up through the unit and was one of our most experienced team leaders. And Danny Yatom. Born not far from Mishmar Hasharon, but a city boy, from Netanya, he was smart, level-headed and a sure-handed organizer, and with whom I’d somehow clicked from time he arrived in the sayeret. I made him my deputy

rael’s finest sons, one of its most courageous warriors, one of its most promising commanders.” The first evening I was back, however, I visited the Netanyahus at their family home in Jerusalem: Ben-Zion and Tzila, the parents; Ido, the youngest of the three children, and Bibi, who was still at MIT. It was a

need for a special-forces unit was becoming increasingly hard to ignore. By the summer of 1971, a couple of months after I became sayeret commander, King Hussein’s army had defeated the insurgency of Fatah and a pair of even more militant partners, the Democratic Front and the Popular Front for the Liberation of

igence and a sardonic sense of humor. Both had tested the patience of our teachers to breaking point. Ido had been sent off to a vocational school in Netanya. Moshe was moved to Mikveh Israel, a school which focused mostly on agriculture. On Friday evenings and Saturdays in the kibbutz, however, they fille

e, Bibi Netanyahu. Much of what I say in this book about war and peace, security and Israel’s future challenges, will make uncomfortable reading for Bibi. But very little of it will surprise him, or his own Likud rivals further to the right, like Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and the Economy Minis

ures and chart a way forward. So what is that way? It begins with the mindset. On more than one occasion in the past few years, after Prime Minister Netanyahu had warned our country of a nuclear Iran or the spread of Al Qaeda-style hatred and violence, as if prophesying the coming of Armageddon, I would say

ter under Shimon Peres. But in the intervening years, Arafat was rarely off of my radar. By the early 1970s, he and his fighters had been expelled by King Hussein’s army from Jordan and were re-based in Lebanon. Arafat was becoming a significant figure on the Arab and world political stage, and an increasingly un

igence and a sardonic sense of humor. Both had tested the patience of our teachers to breaking point. Ido had been sent off to a vocational school in Netanya. Moshe was moved to Mikveh Israel, a school which focused mostly on agriculture. On Friday evenings and Saturdays in the kibbutz, however, they fille

e, Bibi Netanyahu. Much of what I say in this book about war and peace, security and Israel’s future challenges, will make uncomfortable reading for Bibi. But very little of it will surprise him, or his own Likud rivals further to the right, like Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and the Economy Minis

ures and chart a way forward. So what is that way? It begins with the mindset. On more than one occasion in the past few years, after Prime Minister Netanyahu had warned our country of a nuclear Iran or the spread of Al Qaeda-style hatred and violence, as if prophesying the coming of Armageddon, I would say

ter under Shimon Peres. But in the intervening years, Arafat was rarely off of my radar. By the early 1970s, he and his fighters had been expelled by King Hussein’s army from Jordan and were re-based in Lebanon. Arafat was becoming a significant figure on the Arab and world political stage, and an increasingly un