sometime were. It called for mental application, an ability to assess risks, to find answers under enormous pressure when, inevitably, things went wrong. It required not just brawn, but brains. A week before I began my final year at Hebrew University, I went to see Eli Zeira, th...
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/ BARAK / 24 organize events and contact voters during the campaign. We outfitted our own war room in an open-plan floor of offices on the edge of Tel Aviv. Philip called it “Milbank South.” As organizational head of the campaign, I chose Chagai Shalom. An industrial engineer by...
again. The more I talked, however, the more I sensed that the details weren’t what General Tzur really wanted to know. I think what he actually wanted to gauge was whether / felt confident. He wanted to reassure himself he wasn’t taking any more than the obvious risks in sending...
abstract ideas, the theoretical sciences and, often, music as well. I would always smile in response, suggesting that such diagnoses were probably best left to the professionals. I couldn’t pretend, however, that emotional engagement with new acquaintances, even with people I kne...
Places like Bet El, Shiloh, or Hebron. They represented the historic wellspring not just of the state we’d created, but of Jewish civilization, our heritage, our moral and ethical foundation. As I drove back to Tel Aviv with Avraham and the others on the morning of fourth day of...
Tension began building in the north in the spring of 1967, initially set off by Syrian efforts to divert water from the upper reaches of the Jordan River, an important water source for Israel was well. In a series of exchanges, Syrian troops on the Golan fired on Israeli tractors...
Chapter Twelve My own part in the Lebanon war would change dramatically as a result of that last military exercise in the Sinai. Arik Sharon was now Minister of Defense, and he came for the final afternoon. From his experience as a frontline commander — in 1956, 1967 and 1973 —...
Night Flight They say that you can read a person’s feelings on his face. But if so, either I’m a very good actor — the opposite of what anyone who has worked closely with me would tell you — or the journalists clustered in front of me weren’t very good face-readers. They said th...
Nothing happened for several months. By the early spring of 1973, with my two-year term as sayeret commander winding down, I assumed the operation had been vetoed. I could understand why. As we worked on our plan, it had become clear that getting into the heart of the Lebanese ca...
Barely two months after the ambush operation in south Lebanon, Black September seized and murdered members of the Israeli team at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. As soon as the news broke on the morning of September 5, I phoned Ahrahle Yariv as head of military intelligence. “You n...
Chapter Five Almost no one in Israel knew what we had done. But the next morning, a package arrived at the Sayeret Matkal base from one of the few people who did. We opened it in Avraham’s office. It was a nearly full carton of champagne: real, French champagne, since it would b...
illness was. But for nearly six months, getting through the day, sometimes a single task, remained a struggle. I did not want to leave my command. I was still barely 18 months into the role, and anxious to get further command experience. But just as I was feeling at my weakest,...
that you came back,” he said. ““We’Il need each and every one of you to get the job done.” Then he hugged me again. It was as if, knowing I would soon be heading for the front line, he wondered whether we’d see each other again. I made my way to the office that the chief of staf...
/ BARAK / 90 “because for him, Jerusalem was sacred from a strictly national and historic point of view.” It was for me as well. In fact, I think its religious significance probably resonated more strongly. Still, the major change from the summit was that even those Israelis who...
with terror attacks, a major military response was highly unlikely. Saddam’s successors were never going to be Zionists. But we were persuaded that his uniquely central role meant the threat to Israel would be dramatically reduced. I’m much less sure whether the elder President...