The main concern of every prime minister, defense minister, chief of staff and each cabinet minister individually, should be the security of the nation – but also the safety of human beings.So far so good. But then Haber makes the mistake of invoking the holy name:
Every prime minister and every minister should regard every soldier, male and female, in the standing and reserve army as though they were his own sons and daughters, and to ask whether the assignment at hand is that crucial that they would have sent their own children to face the imminent danger.
I can only give a personal example: While Yitzhak Rabin served as defense and prime minister, for six whole months he deliberated over the preparations for the abduction of Mustafa Dirani, who had been holding kidnapped airman Ron Arad.
Some 82 soldiers, if my memory doesn't fail me, were sent deep inside Lebanese territory to the heart of the danger, in order to collect information on Ron Arad.
What would have happened, heaven forbid, if the two choppers had been brought down with the soldiers (this incidentally happened a few years later)? How would have Rabin explained his decision to the country? Would he have explained how he prepared, deliberated and agonized until finally giving the order for the helicopters to take off?
Here are a few lines from the book written by the head of the intelligence unit at the time, Major General Uri Saguy: "During the planning phase, we asked ourselves whether we had the ability to execute such a complex mission…
I didn't envy him for a moment (Rabin), that he would be the one who would ultimately have to approve the operation. Rabin, in his way, probed and demanded and asked endless questions before arriving at his decisions…Rabin turned every stone as to be sure that the risk he was taking was a calculated risk.
He was a military man in every sense of the word – and was fully aware of the meaning and dangers involved in such a mission…
This is also very good and nice. Unfortunately Rabin did not exercise the same caution in diplomacy that he demonstrated as a military man. This is the guy who, in spite of all of the warnings of the intelligence community, brought Yasser Arafat and his thugs to "Gaza and Jericho first", and by doing so caused the death of thousands of Israelis and the wounding of myriads. The Oslo Agreements taught the world that terror pays, and I am of the opinion that the current global jihad is a direct result of this.
The Rabin legacy is not one of caution and deliberation. It is a legacy of carelessness, foolishness, ignorance, corrupt politics and hubris. Let's remember this as Rabinfest 2006 is only a month and a half away.
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