Results for “Avraham Yoffe”

…rating. This was all the more remarkable because we had still yet to carry out a single operation. If anyone other than Avraham had been in charge, I think the unit might have unraveled. The fact that it didn’t was mostly due to of the ethos he created, the feeling that we were a...

line. In a stroke of good fortune, the brigade commander was Dovik Tamari, Avraham Arnan’s first successor as commander of the sayeret. While we waited our forward deployment, due in September, he included me in his discussions with his senior officers on tactics and planning. Th...

…ost of the men were Sephardi Jews. For a unit like ours, with the aim of undertaking secret missions in Arab countries, Avraham believed that a background in Arabic culture and language was an important asset. I was the sayeret’s only lock-picker. But all of us had been recruited...

…tional military cemetery on Mount Herzl, we stood before the resting place of Nechemia Cohen, Yoni Netanyahu, Dado, and Avraham Arnan. From there, we went to the Prime Minister’s office. With Dan Shomron and his wife looking on, Shamir presented me with my third star and formally...

…cessor, Giora Zorea, turned out to be more elaborate than my arrival, though not at my instigation. With both Talik and Avraham in attendance, Dado presented me with my fifth tza/ash. It was not for Beirut. Not for the operation against the Syrian officers, or the unprecedented a...

…gh Meir Amit was pressing the rest of the military brass for a final go-ahead, it still hadn’t arrived by early August. Avraham decided he needed a fall-back plan. He called Tubul and me into his office. He said he wanted me to join the team’s training as Tubul’s deputy, and to b...

…a newcomer. But he was smart, steady and he had served in the Golani Brigade, so he knew the terrain along the border. Avraham could not hide his own nervousness as the operation drew nearer. A week before we were due to set off, he asked whether we were planning a further, full...

…the exhausted crews were already asleep. I parked our Jeep a few yards off the road. We organized a series of watches: Avraham, then Rafi and Danny, with me taking the pre-dawn stretch. A few hours later, Rafi nudged me awake. “I heard something,” he said, pointing west toward t...

…the exhausted crews were already asleep. I parked our Jeep a few yards off the road. We organized a series of watches: Avraham, then Rafi and Danny, with me taking the pre-dawn stretch. A few hours later, Rafi nudged me awake. “I heard something,” he said, pointing west toward t...

…h in broad daylight what I’d failed to do in the desert darkness four months earlier. But it was no use. I finally told Avraham we’d be better off just blowing it up. I attached an explosive charge and set a two-minute delay. We watched from a couple of hundred yards away as the...

…greater youth, energy and confidence. When it was over, and Peres asked us how he’d done, we all hemmed and hawed. Only Avraham Burg was prepared to offer a clear verdict. He told Peres that Bibi had been the clear winner. Still, it remained possible that Ramon’s football-game s...

…n operation had the attention of the kirya been so keen, or the stakes so high. In addition to Meir Amit, and of course Avraham, also flying down to Mount Keren would be General Tzur’s successor as armed forces chief of staff —a gruff Palmach veteran whom I’d met very briefly at...

…h in broad daylight what I’d failed to do in the desert darkness four months earlier. But it was no use. I finally told Avraham we’d be better off just blowing it up. I attached an explosive charge and set a two-minute delay. We watched from a couple of hundred yards away as the...

…ltration force. At this point, we were still just an intelligence unit, not an elite commando force like Britain’s SAS, Avraham Aranan’s ultimate vision for the sayeret. The aim of our bugging missions into Syria and Egypt was not to fight. It was to get in and get out, unseen an...

…e described to me the atmosphere when I radioed my “milk is coming” message: solemn faces, hushed conversations between Avraham and Meir Amit. And off to the side, the recently elevated chief-of-staff, Rabin, chain-smoking and biting his nails. Finally, the audible sighs of relie...