Uzi Eilam - The Secret of Israel’s Power

The Secret of Israels Power

Uzi Eilam

Copyright 2018 Uzi Eilam

All rights reserved; No parts of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, of the author.

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Contents

Acr onyms of Israeli Orga nizations and Titles

Palmach

Hebrew acronym for Plugot Machatz (impact companies), the elite force of the pre-state Haganah fighting force.

Gadna

Hebrew acronym for Gdudei Noar Ivri (Hebrew youth battalions), a pre-army training framework for high school teenagers.

IDF

Israel Defense Forces.

CGS

Chief of the General Staff, the commanding officer of the IDF with a rank of Lieutenant General.

OC

Officer in Command.

Sayeret Matkal

Transliteration of the elite special force unit under direct command of the General Staff.

IMI

Israel Military Industries, an Israeli weapons systems company.

R&D

Research and Development, also the name of the combined IDF/Defense Ministry Unit that preceded MAFAT. IAI Israel Aerospace Industries.

RAFAEL

Hebrew acronym for Authority for the Development of Armaments, a government agency that became a government owned weapons systems company.

MAFAT

Hebrew acronym for the Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure.

IAEC

The Israel Atomic Energy Commission.

Preface

Celebrating my 70th anniversary brought together hundreds of friends that were with me along the way I served my country. Childhood in the Kibbutz, paratroopers in the 50s, Six Days War in Jerusalem, R&D for the IDF in the 70s, the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, Defense R&D and international cooperation in developing technologies. These formed a kaleidoscopic picture that persuaded me to write.

Not being sure of my memory I turned to the IDF archive where all my notes, diaries, lectures and timetables book-notes were kept. This treasure, thanks to the outstanding help of the Archive team, was a key to success and I thank the IDF Archive team for that.

For 18 months I could not stop writing and as it went on I acquired insight and the whole Defense Technology scene was revealed.

Many former colleagues and friends were at my side to help and I remember all of them with deep gratitude.

Battalion 890 fighters from the era of the military activities in the 50th, my soldiers from battalion 71 who fought in Jerusalem in 1967, fellow R&D people of the whole Defense community in the I.D.F, in M.O.D and in the Industries...m indebted to all of you!

The way the book attracted so many Israeli readers encouraged me to think of translating it to English. I thank Jeremy Forman, who did an excellent diligent work of translation. Michael (Mike) Eilan took upon himself to edit the book and did an invaluable job.

Sussex Academic Press with Anita and Anthony Graham were a good support from the outset and I feel privileged that the book has been published by Sussex.

My dear family, Naomi my wife and my children Osnat, Nimrod and Noah deserve a big thank you. My family was with me all along the tough and demanding duties that I had in my career but also along the process of writing this book, patiently encouraging and supporting. Thank you my family!

Childhood

My earliest childhood memory is of my maternal grandfather, Shlomo Kovelman, when he came to visit Kibbutz Tel Yosef where I was born and raised. As a two-year-old sitting on his lap, I can still recall his long white beard tickling my face. His eyes were bright and his hands were soft and gentle the hands of a scholar. Grandpa spoke only Russian and Yiddish, and I can still recall the musical sound of his tenor voice. Before they immigrated, Shlomo Kovelman spent most of his time in the court of his rabbi in the town of Skvira, south of the Ukranian city of Kiev. It was Grandma Miriam who ran the household and the family flour and grain business.

The anti-Jewish pogroms in the Ukraine began after World War I. One evening, Grandpa Shlomo returned home from the rabbis court injured and bleeding. His clothes were torn and half his beard had been shaved off. Grandma Miriam...mall, strong, and practical woman understood exactly what had happened and decided they should leave at once. So began their exodus from the Ukraine that very night. My mother Shifra and her sister Chava immigrated to Palestine to join the pioneers of the modern wave of Jewish-Zionist immigration to Palestine known as the Third Aliyah.

My grandfather on my fathers side was named Yehoshua Trachtenberg, but I never knew him. All that remains of Grandpa Yehoshua in the family photo album is a single picture of a lifeless, badly beaten body. From the bits and pieces of information provided by my father, I understood that his town of Kalinovka had also suffered a Ukrainian anti-Jewish pogrom during which my grandfather was killed.

Yehoshua Trachtenberg was a blacksmith, an unusual occupation for a Jew in those days. My father was also a blacksmith, and as a boy I spent many magical hours with him in his smithy shop on the kibbutz, surrounded by the smell of smoking coal and white hot iron, captivated by the art of producing metal fixtures and accessories and the fascinating work of making horseshoes and placing them with nails that were also forged by hand especially for that purpose. My fathers hands were rough, black, and strong. In my eyes, he was the strongest man in the world.

My father Baruch left home in 1916 at the age of 16, to join the Red Army. However, he quickly became involved in the Zionist movement, which was then operating underground. He was subsequently arrested and, after a quick trial, sent to Siberia. One day in 1924 he was informed that they were being exiled to Palestine. Immediately upon his arrival he joined the Labor Battalion (Gdud Haavoda), whose members were th en engaged in quarrying and paving roads.

And so it came to pass that I bear not only the legacy of my learned Grandpa Shlomo and my Grandpa Yehoshua, with his hands of iron, but also a memory of the pogroms, instilled in me when I was very young. The image of Grandpa Yehoshuas desecrated dead body remains ingrained in my memory like a mysterious and foreboding brand. For some people the words never again may have lost some of their intensity from overuse, but that photograph made them an integral part of my legacy. Growing up, I was imbued with the strength and moral fiber of the legacy of the Jewish people, as well as the physical strength and wisdom of my grandfathers. I have carried this spirit with me my entire life.

My parents home on Kibbutz Tel Yosef was the closest house to the fence that encircled the kibbutz. To the east, just over the fence, were fields that belonged to Arab farmers. One afternoon when I went to my parents room, as we called our parents homes on the kibbutz, I found my father and our neighbor pouring cement into large metal containers and placing them on the patio facing the fence to the east of the house. Arabs had come close to the kibbutz fence during the night, and I could see bullet holes on the interior wall of the room that served as both a living room and a kitchenette. This was the beginning of the eruption of Palestinian violence that historians refer to as the Arab Revolt of 19361939. It was during this period that Charles Orde Wingate, the British intelligence officer who established the Special Night Squads in 1938, first encountered Palestine.