No Mission Is Impossible by Michael Bar-Zohar, Nissim Mishal
Authors: Michael Bar-Zohar, Nissim Mishal
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doesnât bend, doesnât give up and doesnât retreat until the mission is achieved.
The Sinai campaign lasted seven days and ended with an Israeli victory. Israel had beaten the Egyptian Army and conquered all of the Sinai Peninsula. The Franco-British invasion, on the other hand, failed miserably. The Israeli triumph marked the beginning of eleven years of de facto peace on the southern border that would abruptly end with the Six Day War.
   RAFAEL âRAFULâ EITAN, COMMANDER OF THE 890TH PARATROOP BATTALION AND LATER THE CHIEF OF STAFF
          [From an excerpt from his book, A Soldierâs Story: The Life and Times of an Israeli War Hero, written with Dov Goldstein, Maariv, 1985]
              âI was standing closest to the aircraft door. A bit of excitement always hits you over the parachuting site, even if youâve done it many times before. All the more so at the start of a large-scale military campaign, at such a distance from Israel. Youâre plunging into the unknown, into enemy territory. The cockpit of the next plane in the formation was directly across from me, mere feet away. I waved to the copilot. He held his head in both hands, as if to say, âWhat youâre about to do . . .â
              âRed light. Green light. Iâm in the air, floating down, over the Mitla crossroads. Itâs five in the afternoon, dusk. The sunis setting. You can hear a few shots. My feet hit the ground. I release myself from my parachute, get organized quickly. We take our weapons out of their cases. We hold positions in the staging territory. The companies spread out. Itâs already dark. We put barriers into place. We lay mines. We dig in, hole up. There are trenches there from the days of the Turks. This makes our work easier. Our two forces take positions at the Parker Memorial, to the west, and en route to Bir Hasna, to the north. We mark the ground intended for receiving the supplies being parachuted in.
              âAt night I went to sleep. . . . One must muster his forces before experiencing the pressure of combat. One must remove the stress and the emotions to a secluded corner. I dug myself a foxhole, padded it with the cardboard from the parachuted supplies, spread down one or two parachutes, and tucked myself in. Good night by the Mitla.â
The Suez campaign brings Israel almost eleven years of peace. In 1963, Ben-Gurion resigns and is replaced by Levi Eshkol. The chief of staff is Yitzhak Rabin. Ben-Gurion, Dayan and Peres are the leaders of a small party, Rafi, created after a violent clash between Ben-Gurion and Eshkol. On May 15, 1967, Egyptâs President Nasser suddenly triggers a sequence of military moves that threaten Israel with annihilation: he announces that the end of Israel is near. Israelâs efforts to obtain the support of the Great Powers end in failure. France switches camps; President De Gaulle, Israelâs great ally, unexpectedly imposes an embargo on weapons for Israel. Under popular pressure Eshkol reluctantly appoints Moshe Dayan as defense minister in a Government of National Unity in which opposition leader Menachem Begin is minister without portfolio. Israel feels it has no choice but to attack Egypt before it, itself, is attacked and invaded.
CHAPTER 6
âLIFE OR DEATH,â OPERATION FOCUS, 1967
June 5, 1967
A t four-thirty in the morning, every pilot in the Israeli Air Force was awakened. Their planes stood ready for takeoff, fueled and armed, at the Ramat David, Hatzor, Tel Nof and Hatzerim airbases, and even at the civilian airport in Lod. In their cockpits, the pilots, barred from operating their communications systems, maintained complete radio silence; the control towers had also gone quiet. It was forbidden that
The Sinai campaign lasted seven days and ended with an Israeli victory. Israel had beaten the Egyptian Army and conquered all of the Sinai Peninsula. The Franco-British invasion, on the other hand, failed miserably. The Israeli triumph marked the beginning of eleven years of de facto peace on the southern border that would abruptly end with the Six Day War.
   RAFAEL âRAFULâ EITAN, COMMANDER OF THE 890TH PARATROOP BATTALION AND LATER THE CHIEF OF STAFF
          [From an excerpt from his book, A Soldierâs Story: The Life and Times of an Israeli War Hero, written with Dov Goldstein, Maariv, 1985]
              âI was standing closest to the aircraft door. A bit of excitement always hits you over the parachuting site, even if youâve done it many times before. All the more so at the start of a large-scale military campaign, at such a distance from Israel. Youâre plunging into the unknown, into enemy territory. The cockpit of the next plane in the formation was directly across from me, mere feet away. I waved to the copilot. He held his head in both hands, as if to say, âWhat youâre about to do . . .â
              âRed light. Green light. Iâm in the air, floating down, over the Mitla crossroads. Itâs five in the afternoon, dusk. The sunis setting. You can hear a few shots. My feet hit the ground. I release myself from my parachute, get organized quickly. We take our weapons out of their cases. We hold positions in the staging territory. The companies spread out. Itâs already dark. We put barriers into place. We lay mines. We dig in, hole up. There are trenches there from the days of the Turks. This makes our work easier. Our two forces take positions at the Parker Memorial, to the west, and en route to Bir Hasna, to the north. We mark the ground intended for receiving the supplies being parachuted in.
              âAt night I went to sleep. . . . One must muster his forces before experiencing the pressure of combat. One must remove the stress and the emotions to a secluded corner. I dug myself a foxhole, padded it with the cardboard from the parachuted supplies, spread down one or two parachutes, and tucked myself in. Good night by the Mitla.â
The Suez campaign brings Israel almost eleven years of peace. In 1963, Ben-Gurion resigns and is replaced by Levi Eshkol. The chief of staff is Yitzhak Rabin. Ben-Gurion, Dayan and Peres are the leaders of a small party, Rafi, created after a violent clash between Ben-Gurion and Eshkol. On May 15, 1967, Egyptâs President Nasser suddenly triggers a sequence of military moves that threaten Israel with annihilation: he announces that the end of Israel is near. Israelâs efforts to obtain the support of the Great Powers end in failure. France switches camps; President De Gaulle, Israelâs great ally, unexpectedly imposes an embargo on weapons for Israel. Under popular pressure Eshkol reluctantly appoints Moshe Dayan as defense minister in a Government of National Unity in which opposition leader Menachem Begin is minister without portfolio. Israel feels it has no choice but to attack Egypt before it, itself, is attacked and invaded.
CHAPTER 6
âLIFE OR DEATH,â OPERATION FOCUS, 1967
June 5, 1967
A t four-thirty in the morning, every pilot in the Israeli Air Force was awakened. Their planes stood ready for takeoff, fueled and armed, at the Ramat David, Hatzor, Tel Nof and Hatzerim airbases, and even at the civilian airport in Lod. In their cockpits, the pilots, barred from operating their communications systems, maintained complete radio silence; the control towers had also gone quiet. It was forbidden that
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