improper.” This was more than 30 years ago, at a time when being gay, and

improper.” This was more than 30 years ago, at a time when being gay, and certainly being gay in the armed forces, was a much bigger deal than now. But I still had no doubt at all that this amounted to a witch-hunt. Moshe still said nothing. “I have no idea whether Dan is or is not a homosexual. After knowing him for years, I have no reason at all to believe that he is. But let’s assume, for a moment, that he is,” I said. He’s not some junior lieutenant... This is a man who has risked his life for Israel. Repeatedly. Under fire.” Then, I got to the real issue. “I hesitate to mention this,” I said, realizing, and in a way hoping, that my tone would sound vaguely threatening. “But if you order this, the very fact of doing so might be interpreted as being a result of some other motives on your part. I’m doing my best to convince you to think again. But I want you to know that if I can’t, ’'m going from here to Misha’s office. I'll try to convince him of the damage from what you’re contemplating to the whole fabric of trust in the general staff and the army, to the image of the army.” Still, he said nothing. He nodded occasionally. He puffed on his cigarette, put it out, lit another one. It was pretty clear he had no intention of rescinding his order. Within 20 minutes, was in the Minister of Defense’s office. I spoke to him for about 10 minutes. Misha listened. At the end, he said: “I understand what you’ve told me.” I never discovered what exactly he said to Moshe Vechetzi. But the investigation never happened. I never spoke a word about any of it to Dan until years later, after both of us had left the army. The result, however, was that Dan became deputy chief-of-staff under Moshe, the latest step in what was beginning to look like a steady rise to the top. But Misha did make a few concessions to Moshe’s preferred candidates, and that now turned out to have major implications for me. It was a long-accepted practice that chiefs-of-staff had more than one deputy during their period in charge. In the homestretch of Moshe’s tenure, he was able to bring in Amir Drori for a spell as his number-two. And early in 1986, he also brought Amnon Lipkin back to the kirya. Amnon was given my job, as Director of Intelligence. But I got the post which Amnon was leaving: head of the central command area. This meant that, for the first time, I would be in charge of one of Israel’s three regional military commands, and we were based on the edge of Jerusalem, with security responsibility for the West Bank. This was my first direct exposure to the combustible mix of restive Palestinians and the growing number of Jewish settlers. Our main brief was to prevent terror attacks, violence or unrest from the roughly 850,000 West Bank 220 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011691