Col. Moshe Betser and Robert Rosenberg
Secret Soldier: The True Life Story of Israel's Greatest Commando
For all my friends
who fell in the campaigns
and to my loving wife, Nomi
INTRODUCTION
Muki Betser’s life is full of cycles that open and close with historic events in the life of the State of Israel.
Twice he is called to war just when he expects to go home to family and farm. On one occassion he returns in the most glorious fashion from a country in Africa that he loved and from which he was ignominiously evicted. And when he finally leaves the field of battle, it is because he has survived combat long enough to see his own son join the unit that Muki helped turn into the most elite in the IDF. But perhaps no cycle is as profound as the one that this book represents.
We began working on it a few weeks before the historic handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn in September 1993. This introduction was written a few weeks after Rabin was assassinated in November 1995, in the very heart of presumably the safest place in Israel — Tel Aviv.
“My commander, my general” is how Muki referred to Rabin, using the term in the way former chief of staff Rabin himself meant it to be used by soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces: as much teacher as officer, as much parent as leader, as much friend as manager — all roles that Muki himself filled in his years as an IDF commander. Indeed, if not for the assassination, Rabin might have written this introduction, for the old general turned statesman knew Muki well, going all the way back to when, as chief of staff in 1965, he pinned Muki’s first officers’ bars to the then-young lieutenant’s epaulets.
So, “if,” as Rabin’s successor, Shimon Peres, said at the unveiling of the Rabin tombstone on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, “almost all of Israel is now part of the Rabin family,” then Muki is one of the favorite sons in that family.
A scion of the original pioneering families of the Zionist movement in the early twentieth century, a soldier turned civilian who regards deeds as more important than words, a man who spent nearly twenty-five years fighting terrorism but remained constant in his belief that the only way to peace with the Arabs is by sharing the Land of Israel, Muki Betser is of a generation that grew up believing in what Rabin stood for: a strong defense for the sake of a strong peace.
The first question I ever asked Muki, when we finally met face-to-face, was “For years you’ve kept silent. Why do you want to tell your story now?” Except for two interviews soon after retiring from the IDF in 1986, he refrained from making media appearances despite hundreds of requests over the years. His decision to work on his autobiography was a surprise — even to himself, I think.
“Peace is coming,” he told me that hot afternoon in August 1993, before either of us — or the world — knew that in a few weeks Rabin and Arafat would declare the time for bloodshed was over. Nonetheless, it was clear that the Rabin-Peres government was determined to move the peace process forward.
“It’s our only choice — because we’re now strong enough to make it happen. Reality changed. The Berlin Wall fell; there was a war in the Gulf. The Arab world has changed. So have we.
“If we did not try to make peace, how could we look in the eyes of the next generation when they ask what they are fighting for. And if the peace process does not work, then at least we can look into our own hearts and know that we tried.
“It’s important for the next generation to know that all along we fought for peace. My friends say that I have no choice but to tell my story, so that the next generation knows what I know and what all my comrades in the army knew — that when we fought, we fought for peace.”
I once asked Muki to show me the Sayeret Matkal pin he was given when he first joined the Unit. He promised to look for it, but he never did turn it up. Medals never interested him.
But framed and hanging in the living room of his home is the personal invitation he received by messenger from then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s office to attend the ceremonies in the Arava Desert where Israel and Jordan declared peace between the two countries.
That ceremony was, after all, yet another circle closed in Muki’s life — it took place almost a stone’s throw away from where, in 1968, Muki went on a reconnaissance mission in preparation for the first full-scale battle against the PLO, in Karameh, the place where he was wounded so badly he thought he was already dead.
This, then, is not only the story of a secret soldier. It is the story of a secret dove, for whom peace, not combat, was the purpose of his military service at what the popular press sometimes call “the tip of the IDF’s spear.” And as such, I believe it is an inspirational tale of both courage and humanity that reaches far beyond the borders of the Middle East.
Robert Rosenberg
Tel Aviv, November 1995
CONQUERING FEAR
One night just before my eighth birthday, my father sent me out after supper to close the irrigation sprinklers watering the fields behind our house. Proud to get the job, which meant hiking to the far end of the field behind our house in the Jezreel Valley, I ran quickly past the familiar shadows of the little cow barn, the corral where we kept our horse, and the chicken coop, up to the edge of the field.
My pioneering grandparents founded this place, the village of Nahalal, the first cooperative farming settlement of modem Israel. My birthplace, my home, and my world, until that moment at the edge of the dark field, the valley had seemed the safest place in the world.
Though proud to know my father believed me both strong enough to turn the big iron wheel and responsible enough to make sure no precious water was wasted during the night, I looked out at the dark night and felt fear for the first time in my life. I remembered the old farmers telling stories about wild jackals prowling the valley at night. Their howling sounded like crying babies, a trick to seduce farmers into the fields at night to search for a lost infant — only to be set upon by the ravenous beasts.
To my eight-year-old ears, those folk tales merged easily with other natural fears in Israel in the early 1950s, right after the founding of the state. In the rhythmic whispering of the sprinklers off in the darkness, I could hear a gang of hidden Arabs plotting to kidnap me. I stood at the edge of the darkness, frozen with fear.
But in my family’s home in the Jezreel Valley, three values ruled: settling the land, defending the land, and remaining stoic in the face of adversity. I knew I could not turn back without completing the mission.
A jackal’s cackle broke through the night. It mocked my fright — and left me no choice. Taking a deep breath, I walked stiffly into the dark, listening to my pounding heart. I knew every rut in the dusty path. But the walk that took minutes in daytime became endless, as every sound suddenly seemed foreign.
The distant jackals, a nearby frog, the rustling of wind in the hay — all the sounds seemed to be conspiring against me. Finally, I reached the iron wheel that controlled the flow of water into the irrigation pipes. Grabbing it with both hands, I turned with all my might. Just as it closed, a nearby jackal’s howl burst out of the night. And I ran.
Only when I reached the edge of the pool of light in the backyard did I catch the fright in my breath and stop running, conscious of the need to overcome the panic. Panting, I forced myself to listen to the sounds of the night instead of my heart.
The jackals continued to howl. A frog belched from a damp patch inside the orange grove my father had planted that spring. Gradually, as I realized nothing had happened to me, my heart slowed down. I began to recognize and identify the sounds instead of running from them in fear.