The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine (14 page)

Our team had a new commanding officer, a young ensign fresh out of the Officers Academy who had completed a highly classified course in Special Warfare. Before he came, there was a lot of talk and excitement because he was a veteran of our unit now returning as an officer. He took command just prior to the Beret March. We marched through the night, and by daylight it was clear that he had navigated incorrectly and got us lost along the way. So not only did the march end up much longer than planned, but we also failed meet with the unit command at the appointed time and place.

Because these marches are so difficult, they are taken seriously by the army and the highest level of command is involved with every detail. In the morning we could see our unit commander, an army major, and the brigade commander—a full colonel—fuming at the young officer for his navigation blunder: “Is this what we are to expect from you?” Several months later he was dismissed from the unit.
Instead of finishing the march in the early morning hours, it was midday when we finally arrived at our destination, Kfar Yehoshua, a beautiful agricultural community in northern Israel.

We were greeted like heroes, with a feast fit for kings laid out for us by a pool. But we were far too tired and in too much pain to enjoy the food and festivities. Our legs and shoulders hurt so badly we could not stand, but we could not sit or lie down either. It took several days before we all recovered fully. We were extremely proud when we received those bright red berets to wear home that afternoon. I remember heading to the bus depot and making sure the beret was in full sight the entire time.

I remained in this unit for close to a year, but before the training was finished, I injured my knee. I was at the base clinic for a few days, and when it became clear that I wasn’t getting better, they sent me to the hospital in Be’er Sheva, where it was determined that I needed knee surgery. Fortunately, the best orthopedic surgeon and the best facilities in Israel were at the Hadassah hospital on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, a brand new modern hospital just a few short miles from home.

After the surgery, I was sent home for a few weeks to recover, and that was truly a gift. Then my unit commanders decided that for the remainder of my recovery I would train to become the team’s medic at the army Medical College near Tel Aviv. The medic’s course was three-and-a-half months, and by the time I graduated I would be ready to return to full active duty with my team.

I was excited about this turn of events, and I was determined to do well and rejoin my team. However, during those months of medic training, something happened. I liked the intensity of the training it took to be a combat solider and the camaraderie it engendered, but before I had committed myself to being a combat soldier and pursuing the red beret, I’d had another point of view, one that was more humanistic. Being a student of karate, I was opposed to violence and killing. Plus, I was raised to oppose Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people. We, the Jewish people, deserved our own state in our historical homeland and the state needed an army to protect its people. These were our rights—I had no doubts about that— but the brutality of the occupation was seriously bothering me.

At the medical college, away from all the intensity, I had time to catch my breath and to think things through. I felt that I was among my own people again. There was more intelligent discussion and more diversity—in other words, it was more like a college than an army base. The medical corps wasn’t as mindlessly enthusiastic or conformist as the rest of the army, certainly not as much as the combat units. This gave me time to reevaluate who I was and what I wanted to do.

Over time, I realized that I could not continue to be a combat soldier. I became less and less comfortable with my hard-earned red beret, and I
couldn’t ignore the fact that what I had seen was simply wrong. I did, however, like the idea of teaching people how to save lives. At the end of each course, the class instructors would recommend to the course commander the names of students they thought were fit to remain as instructors. I later learned that this required several criteria. You had to be liked by the teaching staff and have a good command of the material. The toughest requirement was the ability to lead and maintain order while teaching thirty young soldiers—who were constantly hungry, horny, and wanted to go home—to become responsible medics.

I was thrilled that at the end of my medic’s course, my instructors recommended my name to the course commanding officer, who in turn requested that I remain at the IDF Medical College to become an instructor. That meant leaving my unit—my team of fighters who were on the cutting edge of Israel’s fighting force—to serve on a base a few miles from Tel Aviv.

It was a long shot. My unit was not likely to let me go after so many months of training and when they were in need of a medic. However, since I was left with some disability as a result of the surgery, they did let me go and I was able to begin the course to become a medic’s instructor.

I began my new military life with a decision that I would leave my hard-earned red beret at home. I found an old black beret and some used black army boots that were lying around the house, and that was how I showed up for the first day of instructor’s training. My instructors and friends were stunned. They had never seen anyone give up the right to wear the red beret. It sounds silly now, but these symbols are immensely important in that environment. The men who supplied me periodically with new boots, beret, and a uniform thought I was nuts. Most guys would literally kill to go home in brown boots and a red beret. I told them they could have mine.

The instructor’s course lasted two-and-a-half months, during which I learned a great deal and felt good about what I was doing. Then, when I began teaching students and watching them become fully prepared, qualified medics, I finally felt I was really serving my country.

In 1979, after several years of negotiations, Israel signed a peace agreement with Egypt, and one aspect of the agreement called for Israel to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and to dismantle the Israeli settlements that were built there. Sinai is an enchanted desert with endless sand dunes, magnificent mountains, and spectacular coral reefs along the Red Sea coast. It also has a few oil wells and the all-important access to the Suez Canal. However, returning all of this did not seem to be as serious a problem for Israel as dismantling the settlements and relocating the Israelis that lived there.

It was common knowledge that these settlements were built on occupied land, and that whoever chose to make a life there knew they were taking the risk of being evacuated one day. Still, a serious problem arose when it was time to evacuate the Israeli settlements that were built in the northern part of the Sinai, near the Israeli border.
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When the time came for the evacuation, extremist Israeli militants took over the settlement of Yamit and refused to leave peacefully. Most of the women and children had already been relocated by then, and the army was sent in to get the extremists.

I was there as part of the army’s medical outfit. It was actually a good feeling—for the first time in my life I felt that people who believed in peace were winning. After all those years of being mocked as an Arab-loving peacenik, I finally felt vindicated. My country was on my side—the army was there to get the Israeli militant extremists out and to allow peace in. I beamed with pride to be part of this history. I remember standing and watching the busloads of militant Israelis being sent back to Israel. Some of them were so hysterical they tried to jump out of the moving buses. I stood with a friend, who was also pleased by what was happening, when a woman who had just jumped out of a moving bus yelled at us, “How can you just stand there? This is a dark, terrible day for Israel and all you do is stand there and smile!”

“On the contrary,” I said. “This is a good day for Israel. Peace is becoming a reality.”

Israeli politics had taken a turn. There was a new cabinet in power and Prime Minister Menachem Begin brought in General Ariel Sharon as the new defense minister. While in uniform, Sharon was revered as a brilliant military man. He had charisma and was often compared to General George Patton in his ability to accomplish things with his soldiers. My father often spoke and wrote of his unique ability as a military man. When Sharon entered politics it became clear that he was a man with a mission. He believed that the fight against the Palestinians had to continue to the bitter end, their bitter end. The peace agreement with Egypt called for talks to continue and include the Palestinians, but a comprehensive peace was the furthest thing from Ariel Sharon’s mind.

From an Israeli perspective, Egypt was the only Arab country that could possibly deter Israel militarily. Now that it was neutralized due to the peace agreement, Sharon saw an opportunity to decimate the Palestinian leadership, which at the time was in exile in Beirut, Lebanon, and place a pro-Israeli, Christian-dominated government in power in that country.

I was home on weekend leave on that fateful June in 1982 when, not six months after the peace agreement with Egypt had been concluded, Israel began its heavy-handed
invasion of Lebanon. I got the call that I had to return to the base due to an emergency situation. It is a call every Israeli soldier expects to receive one day. I immediately got my uniform on and ran to the main road to hitch a ride back to the base.

The base where I was serving was Sarafend, or
Tsrifin
, an old British army base not far from Tel Aviv. When I got back to the base, a few of us began talking about the impending war. It was said to be a nearly 25-mile incursion into southern Lebanon, something Israel had done many times in order to get rid of terrorist cells along the Israeli-Lebanese border. As the war progressed, reports came back from soldiers who were already on the outskirts of Beirut. They too were listening to Israeli radio talk about a “limited” 25-mile incursion into southern Lebanon.

Beirut is much farther into Lebanon than 25 miles, and advancing an army toward the capital city of a sovereign country was no small matter. The first inkling Israelis got of how bad the situation really was came after a fierce battle for control of the Beaufort crusader fort in southern Lebanon. Prime Minister Menachem Begin was flown in to see the place and talk to the soldiers. His visit was broadcast live. A young officer with a quiet sullen expression met him as he got off the helicopter, and you had the feeling from the officer’s expression that things were not good.

The TV cameras were on Begin as he asked the young officer, “So, how was the battle? Did they fight hard? Did they have automatic weapons?” The officer, still quiet and sullen, replied in a barely audible voice, “Yes, they fought hard.” It was obvious the prime minister didn’t have a clue about the strength and firepower of the enemy. Was he expecting them to fight with bows and arrows?

After the visit, Prime Minister Begin said that the fort was captured with no Israeli casualties. It was later made known that the Palestinian fighters fought hard, and it was a fierce battle. At least six Israeli soldiers were killed, and many were wounded. Among the dead was Major Guni Hernik, the commander of one of Israel’s finest elite units. His mother later became the leader of a movement to end the war and bring the boys home. Begin’s ignorance about the war was embarrassing, and it was obvious that Ariel Sharon was running the show.

Discontent with the war was spreading, and at the first antiwar rally, which took place in Tel Aviv, my father spoke: “Friends, this is the first time in Israeli history that people protest a war even as the fighting is carried out.” He later supported soldiers who refused to go into Lebanon and participate in the war. He said over and over that Israel’s bombing and siege of Beirut was a war crime in which no Israeli soldier should consent to participate. When Eli Geva, a renowned army colonel with a promising career, resigned his commission in protest of the bombing of civilian targets in Beirut, my father supported his decision and said, “It was the only morally right thing to do.” However nothing changed, and no one in the cabinet or the army could stand up to Sharon, until he finally crossed the line.