The secret of Israel’s Power

by Uzi Eilam

  A convoy of trucks transported our battalion along the south beaches of the Sinai Peninsula, dropping off every company at its designated location. One event that took place during this journey, related to the spoils of war, remains forever engraved in my memory. The convoy stopped in the town of Abu Rudeis, which had been abandoned both by its local inhabitants and its foreign citizens, most of whom were expert consultants for the manganese mining and oil drilling operations in the region. When we stopped outside the town for lunch, I immediately noticed that many soldiers skipped the meal and instead looted the villas of the foreign experts. I summoned my company runner to stand with me at the junction, and one by one, we stopped all the looters — soldiers and officers alike — who were on their way back, carrying radios, fans, and other looted items. No one escaped the booty checkpoint we set up, and a mountainous pile of goods soon formed. Using a jerry-can full of kerosene, we lit the pile on fire.

  We reached the area which we were supposed to secure. It was vast — stretching from Dahab in the north, which after the Six Day War emerged as a great scuba diving and recreation site, to A-Tor, where Gur and two companies of our battalions had recently been dropped by parachute. During a thorough patrol of the area which lasted almost two weeks, a Bedouin shepherd helped us locate the temple of the Egyptian goddess Hathor on the peak of a rocky mountain known by the Bedouin as Serabit al-Khadim. The temple was accessible by only one narrow path. From below, the mountain looked like all the other mountains in the area, but when we reached the summit we were treated to a breathtaking sight: a row of giant tablets made of reddish Nubian sandstone bearing hieroglyphic script; a large altar that had been preserved in its entirety; and the foundations of pillars indicating the past existence of a large structure which the Egyptians had used to worship the goddess Hathor. A few weeks later, when we returned to patrol the area, we saw two of these hieroglyphic pillars being transported northward by Air Force helicopter to an unknown destination. Many years later, during a visit with a high-level visitor at the home of Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, who was serving as CGS during the 1956 Sinai Campaign, I recognized the pillars of the temple of the goddess Hathor standing among the looted antiquities that Dayan collected in his home. Only then did I understand where the helicopter had been headed.

  Our next assignment was to serve along the armistice line separating the two halves of divided Jerusalem, and we spent a wintry and at times snowy two months manning positions along the winding border that cut through the city. It was during this stint along Jerusalem’s city border that I reached the conclusion that I had given all I could to the 88th Battalion. Now, in the relative quiet that pervaded Israel after the Sinai War, I could allow myself to return to civilian life and to complete my engineering degree at the Technion.

  The stormy but unique period during which I took part in Israel’s reprisal operations, which culminated with Operation Kadesh, had a lasting impression on the IDF. Looking back in retrospect, we can perhaps better assess not only the positive aspects of this activity, but its darker side as well.

  Years later, when he was prime minister, Arik Sharon said that:

  History must assess the reprisal operations not in light of their military achievements alone, but also in light of what we have succeeded in building here over the past 50 years. During the reprisal operations, our trustworthy, professional hand grasped the sword, securing moral values with great cunning, in order to enable our other hand to absorb Jewish immigration; build industry, agriculture, and institutions of education and science; and tirelessly seek the path to peace. It was only because we were then able to find suitable solutions for our security problems that we were later able to achieve periods of relative calm, which allowed us to reach the present and look toward to the future with hopes of a thriving democratic Jewish state living in security and peace. The road was not an easy one, and I know that more challenges lay ahead. But when I look back on the glorious Zionist undertaking we have created here — that is the true payoff for the reprisal operations of those days.

  I agree with Sharon that we were young men imbued with exceptional conviction and courage. We also possessed a kind of naïveté that no longer exists in Israel. Still, I have serious doubts that the reprisal operations provided Israel with the deterrence and security Sharon claimed they did. Historical data from the period of the reprisal operations suggest that they were not overly effective in curbing infiltration and attacks. I also disagree with Moshe Dayan’s assertion, which Sharon also quoted, that “we do not initiate battles in peacetime.” In many cases we actually provoked the enemy on the other side of the border and incited war under the orders of Sharon himself. A truthful analysis of ‘who started it’ throughout the history of the IDF reprisal attacks reveals that we were not always as pure as snow.

  At the same time, the contribution of the reprisal operations of the 1950s, in which Israeli forces dared to attack military bases beyond its borders, must be considered in broad historical perspective as a torch leading the Israeli military. Without this contribution the low morale that pervaded the IDF during the first few years following the War of Independence might have continued. The reprisal operations of the 1950s maintained and further developed the principle of ‘venturing outside the fence’ first initiated by Charles Orde Wingate and the Haganah-based Special Night Squads in the 1930s, and were the stimulus that helped the IDF as a whole embrace a new concept based on offensive initiative.

  4

  A Civilian Break

  A Disabled IDF Veteran

  I returned to the kibbutz after being discharged. My left arm, still half paralyzed despite the best efforts of the orthopedists, still needed one more operation. On arrival at Tel Hashomer hospital to set a date for the operation it quickly became apparent that I was neither a soldier nor yet a disabled IDF veteran. This meant that I had no choice but to be examined by a special panel to receive the status of a disabled IDF veteran with the rights that went along with it.

  The summer began, but being a semi-invalid meant that I was unfit for physical work and so I was assigned the job of kibbutz night watchman. My time as night watchman was relaxing and enjoyable, and gave me ample quality time to quietly contemplate my future. As the summer drew to a close, Rivka Weinstein, who was known as ‘the mother of the Nahal (the Hebrew acronym for ‘fighting pioneer youth’) and the Gadna’, asked me to help organize the convention of our kibbutz movement — the Union of Kvutzot and Kibbutzim — which was scheduled to take place at Kibbutz Tel Yosef during the Sukkot holiday. Her request could not be refused.

  The political and movement oriented aspects of the event was the responsibility of Weinstein and Zvi Brenner, a short, jumpy and energetic man from Kibbutz Afikim. Brenner was not hindered by his visible limp, the remains of an injury from a pre-state operation of the Palmach. He was one of the few Palmach members who had a personal relationship with Ben-Gurion, partly because at heart he was a true member of Ben-Gurion’s Mapai party. The meticulous preparation and ability to cope quickly with the problems that arose during the event made it a highly-praised organizational success. But this would have no bearing on the kibbutz’s traditional position towards academic studies, and I decided to resume my studies at the Technion without seeking kibbutz authorization.

  My subject was initially electronic engineering, but after three years of soldiering, mechanical engineering seemed to me to be more practical. Before the beginning of the academic year I told the kibbutz secretary about my decision to continue studying at the Technion. Not asking for any assistance, financial or otherwise, my status became one of a kibbutz member on extended leave. As a disabled IDF veteran I was eligible to receive a tuition scholarship, as well as a small loan to cover living expenses (which would be paid back when I began working as an engineer). Tutoring noncommissioned naval officers in preparation for their matriculation exams in mathematics, physics and chemistry provided me with a small income as did wo
rking in a chapter of the scouts with the oldest age group: the eleventh and twelfth graders.

  The high academic level of the students of the IDF Academic Reserves who began studying at the Technion immediately after high school was impressive and I was jealous of the ease with which they learned. My studying relied more on logic and experience than on memory.

  I began to undertake more public activities, at first as the chair of the committee of my program’s students and later, during my third year, as the elected chair of the Technion’s Student Union. During the academic year my weekends were divided between visiting my mother at Tel Yosef and seeing my girlfriend Naomi, who was now studying medicine in Jerusalem.

  The Establishment of Sayeret Matkal

  One day during my second year at the Technion, Arik Sharon asked me to go to the General Staff base at the Kiriya campus in Tel Aviv for a meeting. By that time Sharon was serving as a department director within the Training Department, an administrative position to which he had been exiled after the Sinai war. This stormy and creative man was mired in controversy all his life, controversy that from time to time brought him low when he was overcome by his adversaries. His time in the Training Department was one of these low points, but he never stopped being active and certainly never stopped thinking creatively. In Colonel Sharon’s office was none other than Meir Har-Zion, who in the meantime had established a cattle farm in the Lower Galilee which he named after his sister, Shoshana. He had also been summoned to the meeting.

  Sharon got straight to the point: the General Staff had decided to set up a special elite unit under its direct supervision to carry out special missions in accordance with its needs. We spent two days thinking about the principles and the concept on which the unit should be based. Har-Zion dealt with the missions concept and I dealt with the organizational structure of the new unit. Sharon was grateful for our recommendations and exempted us from any further involvement in the undertaking. Avraham Arnan, who actually established Sayeret Matkal, consulted with Har-Zion extensively during the first few years of building the unit.

  During my third year at the Technion, amongst other things, I chaired the Student Union, directing a major student strike against the new Technion bylaws, giving press conferences and radio interviews and conducting negotiations with the Technion administration. The weakness of Technion President Yaakov Dori, a legendary figure in the IDF who had served as CGS during the War of Independence, was surprising. Chairing the Student Union taught me some important lessons, including insight into the weaknesses of managers when facing a well-organized campaign. The strike ended a few months later in a compromise that could have also been reached without the strike.

  Despite my already intensive extra-curricular activity, there was also time to take a weekly French class at the Technion. Years later, living in Paris during a year-long sabbatical at the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS) (a French think-tank engaged in the research of strategic and technological issues, and subsequently as the head of the defense ministry delegation in Paris), the basics of the language acquired from my teacher Enoch at the Technion came flooding back to me. Every time my French surprised me, a voice inside said: ‘Thank you, Enoch.’

  Marriage and Leaving the Kibbutz

  Naomi and I decided to get married during the summer at the end of my third year at the Technion and I met with kibbutz secretary Meir Shachar, who had been involved in all my struggles to study at the Technion, to tell him that I was leaving the kibbutz. It felt as though I was standing on the threshold of a new yet familiar world, with complete independence and without any fear, knowing that I could rely only on myself. I recognized firmly that from now on I had to trust my abilities.

  It seemed unreasonable to keep the money saved from my regular monthly salary during my service in the paratroops because it had been earned while I was still a kibbutz member and felt as though it didn’t belong to me, so I transferred it all to the kibbutz (in those days kibbutz members who left their kibbutzim were not paid compensation). The only things I took with me were an iron bed, a cotton blanket, used since I had lived in the kibbutz children’s house, and three pieces of furniture.

  Naomi and I moved to Kibbutz Usha, where her parents were members. We were given a small room in a cottage at the edge of the kibbutz. During the summer vacation we worked in the Haifa oil refineries. We took a two-day vacation to get married in a small family ceremony in Tel Aviv. Although our honeymoon was put off indefinitely, we would later be fortunate enough to take many trips together, each of which would feel like a honeymoon.

  One day, Amos Berkowitz, the outgoing chair of the Technion Student Union, dragged me to a meeting with members of the young guard of the Mapai party, including Moshe Dayan, Gad Yaakobi and other figures who in 1959 were still quite young. I listened attentively to their enthusiastic and convincing arguments and they gave the impression that they truly intended to create an alternative to the old-guard Mapai party regime. However, politics held no interest for me at the time: I just wanted to begin my career as an engineer and considered going into politics at a later time.

  However, I continued as the Student Union Committee member responsible for foreign relations. This position brought me to the Far East for the first time, and provided me with knowledge and insight that increased over the years, thanks to my contacts with friends and colleagues from Asian countries and the diverse defense work that became my career. My friend Reuven Merhav, who was also the secretary of the Israeli National Student Union, told me that a five-week seminar for Asian student leaders was scheduled to be held in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaya (today Malaysia). The national students union were allowed to send two representatives to the seminar, and it had been decided that one should come from the Technion. The idea of spending five weeks in Malaya and Kuala Lumpur, which sounded so exotic and far away, enthralled me and although such a long absence so late in the academic year was a great risk, it was too good an opportunity to miss.

  The seminar was held on the campus of the University of Kuala Lumpur and was attended by students from Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaya, Japan, Vietnam and Israel. I joined the editorial board of the seminar newspaper that was published on a weekly basis and my English continued to improve during the program.

  The seminar gave me a new appreciation and understanding of people from Asian countries and their cultures. It also taught me a great deal about the politics and the smaller social groupings within the minority and majority populations of those Asian countries. At that time, Malayan concern was growing that a merger with Singapore, with its two million Chinese inhabitants, would result in a Chinese majority and the ruling regime, which until that point had been Muslim, being overturned. I admired the complex sophistication of the students from India and the straightforwardness and courage of the students from Sri Lanka, in addition to their ability to eat food that was so spicy that the smell alone was enough to make most people’s eyes water. I also learned to recognize the gentleness of the Vietnamese and the scholarliness and precision of the students from Singapore.

  The experience was deeply enriching and I submitted a complete report of the seminar to the Foreign Ministry on my return.

  Professor Kahan

  The class on industrial engineering and management, titled Production Engineering, was taught by Professor Yoel Kahan, an intelligent and experienced engineer who had worked for the Dutch railroads prior to World War II. During the war Kahan hid in Holland and somehow managed to make it through in one piece. During those difficult years he relied primarily on his intelligence and his sense of humor, which his students thoroughly enjoyed. During the last lecture of the course he shared this with us: “You are about to enter a world of young engineers. You have one year — two at the most — to ask all the stupid questions you’ll never dare to ask later. Don’t miss the opportunity.”

  Professor Kahan had a small industrial engineer
ing consulting firm named Kheshet. The company offered consulting services in a variety of areas, including industrial-organizational consulting and consulting for non-industrial entities such as the Municipality of Tel Aviv. My friend Zivan Zimhoni, who had already been working for Kahan for three years, recommended that I should be hired as one of the firm’s seven engineers.

  The firm acquired a new client, a Jerusalem factory called Friedman and Sons, and working with them enabled me to join Naomi in Jerusalem for her last two years of medical school. It was prudent for me to pursue a supplementary engineering degree that required a project in a practical field and the subject of my project was the distribution of home refrigerators, one of Friedman’s three main products. Professor Kahan agreed to be my supervisor.

  My work at Kheshet set me on a path that took me further than I could ever have imagined. Dr. Teddy Weinshel was an engineer and worked with Kahan in the early days to establish the firm. Weinshel had studied for his PhD in business administration at Harvard University and, when he returned to Israel, he accepted a position at the Faculty of Business Administration at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was looking for an assistant and Kheshet provided the link between us. Weinshel was teaching the foundations of production management based on case studies and, as his assistant, I was responsible for the discussion section with the students, a curious, inquisitive and talented group of young men and women.

  At the beginning of the academic year Dr. Weinshel disappeared. Professor Dan Haft, chair of the Department of Business Administration, explained that at the last moment Weinshel and the department failed to reach an agreement on the terms of his employment and he would not be coming back to teach. I was asked to take the course’s lectures as well as its discussion sections. It was a quantum leap, somewhat reminiscent of my jump from squad commander to company commander in the 890th Battalion. This marked the beginning of two years as a university lecturer, in addition to my job at the consulting firm. I also began studying for my MSc (Masters of Science) in operations research at the Technion. The academic work for my MSc was consolidated into one and a half days of classes on Thursdays and Fridays. I approached Professor Kahan and asked whether I could join the program, and if so how. Once again, Kahan came up trumps. “Go and join the program,” he said. “As for the time — take half from the vacation days you have coming to you, and the firm will provide the rest.”