Epstein Secrets

Nasser’s communications in the Sinai. So was Avraham Arnan. He enlisted the backing of an old friend, Uri Yarom, who was now commander of the Israeli Air Force and was eager to put our fleet of recently acquired Sikorsky S-58 helicopters to operational use. When Avraham called me in to tell me what he had in

he early 1960s, there were only two of note. One was Sayeret Golani, attached to the Golani Brigade near the northern border. The truly elite one was Sayeret Tzanhanim, the paratroopers’ sayeret. It had been built from Company A of Battalion 890, where Yigal had served in the 1950s. “Which sayeret?” I asked. “It’s

Nasser's communications in the Sinai. So was Avraham Arnan. He enlisted the backing of an old friend, Uri Yarom, who was now commander of the Israeli Air Force and was eager to put our fleet of recently acquired Sikorsky S-58 helicopters to operational use. When Avraham called me in to tell me what he had in

he early 1960s, there were only two of note. One was Sayeret Golani, attached to the Golani Brigade near the northern border. The truly elite one was Sayeret Tzanhanim, the paratroopers’ sayeret. It had been built from Company A of Battalion 890, where Yigal had served in the 1950s. “Which sayeret?” I asked. “It’s

h a boulder-strewn field across the border. The Syrians included three senior members of the Operations Department of the General Staff, and two from Air Force intelligence. Israel made an immediate offer to swap them for our pilots, though how enthusiastically I'm not sure. With this kind of leverage on our

Other Israeli sayerets were attached to specific fighting forces. Sayeret Golan, for instance, was part of the Golani infantry brigade in the north; Sayeret Tzanhanim, was part of the paratroopers. But "matkal" is the Hebrew word for the general staff, since it was the generals in military headquarters who had allo