Epstein Secrets

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

I, with a couple of other young soldiers and engineers, had come up with what we dubbed the “submarine door” system outside the cockpit — to protect El Al pilots from future attacks after one of its planes had been hijacked to Algiers in the summer of 1968. It was also the same kind of plane — a Sabena

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

to an Arab country, where we’d be powerless to act. Though only a handful of my men had arrived, I took the only officer who had, Shai Agmon, and an El Al engineer to see whether we could disable the hijacked jet. It was parked well off from the main terminal area. With the El Al man leading the way, we

nd in the Sinai. Without any advance call-up, many reservists were only now reaching the front lines. As hundreds of people pressed for seats on the El Al flight, I was fortunate to receive a boost up the pecking order from another man in line. Since the Sabena operation, the existence of Sayeret Matkal

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

I, with a couple of other young soldiers and engineers, had come up with what we dubbed the “submarine door” system outside the cockpit — to protect El Al pilots from future attacks after one of its planes had been hijacked to Algiers in the summer of 1968. It was also the same kind of plane — a Sabena

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

to an Arab country, where we'd be powerless to act. Though only a handful of my men had arrived, I took the only officer who had, Shai Agmon, and an El Al engineer to see whether we could disable the hijacked jet. It was parked well off from the main terminal area. With the El Al man leading the way, we

and in the Sinai. Without any advance call-up, many reservists were only now reaching the front lines. As hundreds of people pressed for seats on the El Al flight, I was fortunate to receive a boost up the pecking order from another man in line. Since the Sabena operation, the existence of Sayeret Matkal