Epstein Secrets

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

entire Golan for peace. With Rabin, Itamar Rabinovich and the rest of the team, we put together a framework limiting Syria’s military presence on the Heights. We envisaged phasing out the restrictions as Syria took steps toward the kind of peace which had proved possible with Egypt and Jordan. But indirect

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

entire Golan for peace. With Rabin, Itamar Rabinovich and the rest of the team, we put together a framework limiting Syria's military presence on the Heights. We envisaged phasing out the restrictions as Syria took steps toward the kind of peace which had proved possible with Egypt and Jordan. But indirect

awn in Private Benjamin. The main misunderstanding, however, went deeper. The assumption appeared to be that my military achievements, especially in Sayeret Matkal, were down to a mix of brute force and raw courage. Courage, of course, was a requirement: the willingness to take risks, if the rewards for success,

one pole, buried the bulky transmitter and made their way back. And it worked. Israeli intelligence could listen in to military communications on the Heights. The hitch as that the batteries had to be replaced every few weeks. Several more times, Meir and his men sneaked back into Syria to keep the bug wor

1:15 in the morning even if that meant not getting the intercept in place. And it was already past midnight. We began climbing into the heart of the Heights, planning to go around the southern edge of the Syrian base at Banias. The vegetation was sparser but we still ran the risk of making noise from the

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

APCs in a massive motorcade from the bottom to the top of the country and back again. We dubbed it Cinerama, from the Hebrew words for Sinai and the Heights, Ramah. If there was an escalation of hostilities, the northern command’s regular division would cross into Lebanon. Our role would be to take their

awn in Private Benjamin. The main misunderstanding, however, went deeper. The assumption appeared to be that my military achievements, especially in Sayeret Matkal, were down to a mix of brute force and raw courage. Courage, of course, was a requirement: the willingness to take risks, if the rewards for success,

one pole, buried the bulky transmitter and made their way back. And it worked. Israeli intelligence could listen in to military communications on the Heights. The hitch as that the batteries had to be replaced every few weeks. Several more times, Meir and his men sneaked back into Syria to keep the bug wor

1:15 in the morning even if that meant not getting the intercept in place. And it was already past midnight. We began climbing into the heart of the Heights, planning to go around the southern edge of the Syrian base at Banias. The vegetation was sparser but we still ran the risk of making noise from the

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

APCs in a massive motorcade from the bottom to the top of the country and back again. We dubbed it Cinerama, from the Hebrew words for Sinai and the Heights, Ramah. If there was an escalation of hostilities, the northern command's regular division would cross into Lebanon. Our role would be to take their