Epstein Secrets

ponsible for drafting an annual strategic assessment for the army and the government. The final report was written by Shlomo Gazit, who had succeeded Eli Zeira as head of military intelligence. Before we sent it to print, he held a long meeting, inviting the views of all the military intelligence officers. T

spring of 1969. My parents and brothers came with two busloads of friends from the kibbutz. Avraham Arnan was there, of course. But Ahraleh Yariv and Eli Zeira, two of the military intelligence heroes of the Six-Day War, also drove up for the wedding, which touched both Nava and me, not to mention her family

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

e Dayan, now a member of the Knesset, as Defense Minister. I still vividly remember a visitor to the sayeret the day after Eshkol’s address. Colonel Eli Zeira was head of the “collection department” of the intelligence corps, the rough equivalent of America’s National Security Agency. Formally, Sayeret Matk

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

he Dayan, now a member of the Knesset, as Defense Minister. I still vividly remember a visitor to the sayeret the day after Eshkol's address. Colonel Eli Zeira was head of the "collection department" of the intelligence corps, the rough equivalent of America's National Security Agency. Formally, Sayeret Matk

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