Epstein Secrets

o Palestine in 1948 and joining the Irgun. In fact, it was with Misha’s personal backing that one of my former Sayeret Matkal officers — the son of a Jabotinsky acolyte — had recently taken his first steps into the political limelight. After a two-year stint as Israel’s number-two diplomat in Washington, Bibi

Amir Drori, the head of the northern command. They had set up a rooftop observation post just a few hundred yards in from where I had landed with my Sayeret Matkal team a decade earlier for the Rue Verdun operation. It overlooked a pair of Palestinian refugee camps: Sabra and, a couple of hundred yards closer to

tment to the values of an open, tolerant democracy. But in at least one important way, I approached my new role as if it was one of our operations in Sayeret Matkal, or the need to reshape our armed forces when I was chief-of-staff. My first priority was to put in place the practical foundations for a successful

ion about our enemies, and make sure it got to the commanders and field units that needed it. And while the details of many operations I approved for Sayeret Matkal and other units remain classified, we did succeed in doing that — to take just one example, by finding an entirely new way to get intelligence from i

o Palestine in 1948 and joining the Irgun. In fact, it was with Misha's personal backing that one of my former Sayeret Matkal officers - the son of a Jabotinsky acolyte - had recently taken his first steps into the political limelight. After a two-year stint as Israel's number-two diplomat in Washington, Bibi

Amir Drori, the head of the northern command. They had set up a rooftop observation post just a few hundred yards in from where I had landed with my Sayeret Matkal team a decade earlier for the Rue Verdun operation. It overlooked a pair of Palestinian refugee camps: Sabra and, a couple of hundred yards closer to

tment to the values of an open, tolerant democracy. But in at least one important way, I approached my new role as if it was one of our operations in Sayeret Matkal, or the need to reshape our armed forces when I was chief-of-staff. My first priority was to put in place the practical foundations for a successful

ion about our enemies, and make sure it got to the commanders and field units that needed it. And while the details of many operations I approved for Sayeret Matkal and other units remain classified, we did succeed in doing that - to take just one example, by finding an entirely new way to get intelligence from i

h history, he could not find a place on the faculty at Hebrew University. He was convinced, perhaps with some reason, that his outspoken advocacy for Jabotinsky’s Zionism in a country defined by Ben-Gurion’s had frozen him out. He left to pursue his academic career in America, where both Yoni and Bibi spent m

advancement in Jerusalem. Though he would eventually return to Israel, he was teaching at Cornell when his sons became officers under my command in Sayeret Matkal. So there was a physical distance between father and sons. But what struck me was how large the father loomed in both of their lives. There was an al

ons within the PLO were ready to step into the breach if Arafat faltered. Israel needed to find an answer for all these threats. Uzi Yairi’s term as Sayeret Matkal commander had by now ended, but his successor was someone I knew well. Menachem Digli was the officer on whom I’d bestowed my stolen Syrian Mercedes

h history, he could not find a place on the faculty at Hebrew University. He was convinced, perhaps with some reason, that his outspoken advocacy for Jabotinsky's Zionism in a country defined by Ben-Gurion's had frozen him out. He left to pursue his academic career in America, where both Yoni and Bibi spent m

c advancement in Jerusalem. Though he would eventually return to Israel, he was teaching at Cornell when his sons became officers under my command in Sayeret Matkal. So there was a physical distance between father and sons. But what struck me was how large the father loomed in both of their lives. There was an al

ions within the PLO were ready to step into the breach if Arafat faltered. Israel needed to find an answer for all these threats. Uzi Yairi's term as Sayeret Matkal commander had by now ended, but his successor was someone I knew well. Menachem Digli was the officer on whom I'd bestowed my stolen Syrian Mercedes