Please send as far and wide as possible. Thanks, Robert Sterling Editor, The Konformist http://www.konformist.com Kirby the Konspiracy Boy says, "Don't read this magazine!!! It's all a diabolical brainwashing plot!!!" If you are interested in a free subscription to The Konformist Newswire, please visit http://www.eGroups.com/list/konformist/ and sign up. Or, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject: "I NEED 2 KONFORM!!!" (Okay, you can use something else, but it's a kool catch phrase.) Date: Friday, February 12, 1999 11:57:37 AM From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subj: Millstein MILLSTEIN'S RABIN FILE IN ENGLISH by Barry Chamish Professor Uri Millstein's book The Rabin File caused a sensation when published in Hebrew four years ago because it shattered the myth of Yitzhak Rabin-War Hero. Relying heavily on first hand eye-witness reports, Millstein presented a portrait of Rabin-Sniveling Coward. Summarizing his findings, Millstein writes: Rabin's military career lists the following documented events: fled from the battlefield, was relieved of battalion command, relieved twice of brigade command, collapsed under strain as Chief-of-Staff...Rabin is entirely a myth, without a single concrete military achievement...But incriminating Rabin is not "politically correct" and even the opponents of his policy refrain from doing so. Hence the political-cultural system in Israel encourages coverups and misrepresentation, thus preventing exploring the whole truth and ensuring future failures. Gefen Books ([EMAIL PROTECTED] - 1 800 477 5257) has just released The Rabin File in English and it is a revelation. Reading Millstein in Hebrew is tough slogging but the Gefen translation is a major improvement in style. The book has become fast-paced and highly accessible...and twice as disturbing for those of us personally concerned about Israel's security. The story Millstein tells is of a young man placed in high military command, in large part, due to deference to his mother, a famous left-wing activist. Without consideration given to his character, Rabin provesto be a hopeless batallion and brigade commander. In his sole test under fire, on April 20, 1948, Rabin fled an ambushed convoy under the pretext of gathering reinforcements. However, once he reached safety, he chose not to return to the battleground where dozens of his men lay wounded and dying, preferring to take a nap. A month later he slept at the soldiers' hostel in Jerusalem while 44 men of the Harel Brigade he led, died on the rocky slopes of Nebi Samuel, barely five miles away. So how did Rabin rise to the top of the ranks? Accidentally, it turns out. In June, 1948, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion ordered an arms ship, the Altalena sunk off the coast of Tel Aviv. The ship belonged to the rival, right wing organization, the Irgun and standing on its bridge was Ben Gurion's political opponent Menachem Begin. Ben Gurion found a willing officer, Yigal Yadin, who was prepared to sink the ship with artillery but no soldier or officer was prepared to actually shoot the Irgun men swimming to shore. Into Palmach headquarters walked Yitzhak Rabin to visit his girlfriend Leah. Ben Gurion realized that only the far-left Palmach had been inculcated with enough Irgun hatred to actually shoot dead helpless men swimming away from a burning ship. Since Rabin was the highest-ranking officer in the building, he gave the order to murder and fourteen Jewish men fell dead from his bullets. To prevent the ugly truth from reaching the public, thereafter Ben Gurion felt obliged to advance Rabin's military career. Most of the Rabin File is not about Rabin himself but about myth-making and the cost in lives to the Israeli people. Rabin was not the only officer to disgrace himself in the War Of Independence: Yigal Allon, the "hero" of the war, never once stepped onto a raging battlefield. Those who did, including Uzi Narkiss, Yitzhak Sadeh, Yohai Bin-Nun, Chaim Bar Lev and Yosef Tabenkin displayed the same lack of nerve and judgement as did Rabin from afar. The result was the loss of 6000 men, 1% of the Jewish population of Israel and 10% of its finest young men. Nor does Millstein allow us to forget that Rabin's Harel Brigade also lost the holiest neighborhoods of Jerusalem and the most vital strategic settlements everywhere but west of the city. So how did Israel survive the war at all? Mostly because of the courage and determination of lower-ranked officers and their men, plus the incompetence of the enemy. And this, insists Millstein is Rabin's legacy: The IDF to this day advances its most incompetent and scandal-ridden officers, they eventually enter the top ranks of the political system and the country pays the price. From personal experience, I could not agree more. Almost everyone who serves in the IDF asks: How did we ever win? And comes to the conclusion: The other side must really be incredibly hopeless. From the first day of training, I noticed that our highest ranking commanders were misfits but their underling officers were usually admirable. The results eventually were tragic. Allow me to give some real-life examples: - I served in a medium-range anti-aircraft batallion. Our division commander constantly molested the women in our unit, appointed screwed-up officers to command us, while relegating the better-fit officers to languish forever as lieutenants. A humiliating and incomprehensible regimen had so lowered morale that I made an appointment to meet Chaim Laskov, then-chief ombudsman for the Israel Defence Forces. I warned him that there was going to be a tragedy soon if the officers weren't replaced. The warning was ignored and within four months there were two suicide attempts, one successful, the other leaving the young soldier a vegetable for life. The division commander was not drummed out of the service, he was given a lateral promotion as warden of a large military stockade. - However, the policy of promoting misfits continued. One soldier was a thief and liar. But he was also scion of a well-placed Labor Party family. By the time of the Lebanon War in 1982, he was a first lieutenant. By then, I had transferred to a short-range missile unit and also fought in the Lebanon War. By the fourth day of the fighting, many in our unit were begging to be dismissed from duty, some out of cowardice, others for legitimate reasons. Only one soldier was granted this request, our division commander, the highest ranking officer in the battlefield. Nonetheless, my division acquitted itself well, knocking down three Syrian Migs. My previous division, meanwhile, became a laughing stock when they missed a squadron of attacking Migs because the officers had not ordered the safety pins removed from the missiles in time. - I served in a large air force base. Every night for two months we were ordered to take up positions to catch an arsonist who eventually started 32 fires on the base. When he was finally trapped, he turned out to be the base fire chief, who thought he could advance in rank if he was needed more. During the same period, a disgruntled cook dumped rat poison in salad and poisoned 780 soldiers, almost killing two. We were reminded by our officers that as soldiers we were forbidden to speak to the media. I didn't care anymore. I phoned Haaretz military affairs reporter Zeev Schiff and told him there was a coverup ordered to hide a mass poisoning on one of the IDF's most important air bases. The story became a national scandal. The case commander was removed only a few years later, replaced by Defence Minister Rabin with Aviem Selah, Jonathan Pollard's handler, amply rewarded for his silence. During the Lebanon War, there were three axes of attack. Only the middle axis failed miserably to reach its targets. And two of the commanders of this axis, Dan Shomron and Amiram Mitzneh were chosen by Defence Minister Rabin to put down the intifada in 1987. He chose to advance officers like himself, incompetent and scandal- ridden and a tiny protest, which could have been put down in days, turned into a relentlessly bloody revolt. And there was another officer in the central axis that Rabin chose to advance instead of the successful commanders of the coastal and eastern axes: then-colonel Ehud Barak. The most tragic blunder of the Lebanon War was the ambush at Sultan Yaacob in mid-July, 1982 during which 22 IDF soldiers died. For years, the question of who gave the order to advance into the ambush was covered up by the IDF. In 1994, the head of Northern Command Gen. Avigdor Ben Gal broke his silence and he was backed by his then chief of intelligence Col. Mickey Shatz. While Ben Gal was on a jeep patrol, Barak ordered the advance into Sultan Yaacob, entirely on his own initiative. To this day, the families of five soldiers captured by the enemy have not been told of their sons' fate, nor have their bodies been returned, all to cover up the fiasco and to protect Barak. Five more families mourned their sons in 1991, when Barak commanded a training exercise at the Tzeelim base in the Negev Desert. A rocket landed on the soldiers, and wounded seven others. Barak got into his helicopter before any of the wounded were evacuated and flew to Tel Aviv to coordinate a coverup with Rabin. The nation was told the whole truth couldn't be released because Barak was planning a highly secret mission to eliminate Saddam Hussein. When this lie failed to convince the families of the dead soldiers, they were placed under heavy surveillance until they were worn down and too exhausted to continue their fight for justice. Now we've got elections and look who the main candidates are: Barak, Mordechai, Lipkin-Shahak and Netanyahu, all former IDF officers. Netanyahu is the only candidate with an unblemished military record and he only rose to the rank of captain. The rest are former chiefs-of-staff. Barak is the worst of the lot but Generals Yitzhak Mordechai and Amnon Lipkin-Shahak while in command of the IDF, found no creative or courageous solutions to the Lebanon quagmire, which saw over a hundred of our finest young men killed during their tenures, and left the IDF demoralized and weak. If a ragtag bunch of terrorists like Hizbullah can walk all over the finest soldiers of the IDF, one can only contemplate in dread what might be the result of a war with real armies. Lipkin-Shahak's military solution was to lead the withdrawal negotiations with the PLO, a fine example of fighting spirit for all the soldiers of the IDF. The upcomimg elections prove that the main contentions of Uri Millstein's The Rabin File are right on the money. May all who love Israel read the book, draw the only possible conclusions and demand fundamental reforms to the Israeli military and political systems. The author's book, Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin is available from www.amazon.com and will soon be released as well by Gefen Books in Hebrew and Russian editions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fresh flowers are the perfect way to say "I love you". Shipped direct from the grower, Proflowers.com has arrangements from $29.95 plus S&H. 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