7.101WroliiWie** , -,A1.**44011Q.I..11.110iiiatiroweaWolift. THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS May the coming Rafael Eitan: Israel's Top Soldier By SIMON GRIVER . World Zionist Press Service year be filled JERUSALEM — There is more than meets the eye to Rafael Eitan, Israel's 11th with health and v1n3ri happiness for nacn to all all our family our friends and relatives and friends ABE & SYLVIA PEARLMAN RHEA, HAROLD & . MERRIL ROWE RAFAEL EITAN We wish our family and friends a very healthy, happy and prosperous New Year ROBERTA & JERRY MALIN Dennis, Jeff, Cari & Alissa We wish our family and friends a very healthy, happy and prosperous New Year DAVE & ETHEL NATINSKY , . We wish our family and friends a very healthy, happy and prosperous New Year ROZ & SID PELTON Plantation, Florida y , Wishing all our family and friends a year of health and happiness MRS. BEN BENESON & FAMILY Wishing all our family and friends a year of health and happiness Wishing all our family and friends a year of health and happiness Wishing all our family and friends a year of health and happiness Wishing all our family and friends a year of health and happiness • e ilk ray a 4. a .we r. 411, and longest serving chief of staff. On every rung of the military ladder he managed to impress his superiors, but never to the degree that any of them expected him to reach the more senior ranks. However, Eitan always seems to have an extra trick up his sleeve. Even when he became the chief of staff in 1978 he was viewed as a "yes" man who would leave politics to the politi- cians. He was considered a brave and talented man, but mainly a practical soldier who had neither the shrewdness, ability nor am- bition to exploit his position to make political state- ments. Eitan has been involved in numerous highly pub- licized controversies, at- tracting the wrath of the Labor Alignment for his hard line views on territo- rial concessions. He even fell afoul of government cir- cles over his handling of the Sinai withdrawal. But Eitan's military credentials are impecca- ble. Born in 1929 in the Jezreel Valley moshav of Tel Adashim, where he still lives, his father was Moshe Kaminsky, one of the founders of the Hashomer movement. Eitan left school at 13, preferring the practical life of farming. He has never fully shaken off the stigma of being a man who is no intellectual, even though he later studied for several years at various military col- leges. At age 17 he joined the Palmach and during the War of Independence he was wounded while fighting in the Katamon quarter of Jerusalem. He was wounded twice more, near Tiberias, in the early 1950s while conducting a reprisal raid for which he received a bravery citation, and at Kantara in 1968. In the Sinai campaign of 1956 he was a battalion commander, in the Six-Day War a brigade commander and shortly after the Yom Kippur War was placed as head of Northern Com- mand. In 1977, he was pro- moted to the head of general staff and became chief of staff the following year. Eitan always avoided journalists before becoming chief of staff. But the taciturn "moshavnik" sud- denly transformed himself into probably the most interviewed and publicized chief of staff Israel has ever had. His first media cam- paign was ironically that the press should be more restrained in criticizing Israel. His assertion that the West Bank and Gaza were needed if Israel were to be properly de- fended was seen by the Labor opposition as grossly violating the bounds of his respon- sibilities. Eitan's negative ap- proach to evicting settlers first on the West Bank and later in Sinai brought him reprimands from Defense Ministers Ezer Weizmann and Ariel Sharon. In Sinai he publicly told settlers that he would try to change gov- ernment policy on the evacuation. Rumor mon- gers had it that only Prime Minister Begin's personal admiration of Eitan saved him from being fired. Eitan was also attacked for reducing the sentences of soldiers found guilty of shooting to kill Arab protes- ters. And only a week before the Lebanese invasion some Knesset members were angry because he had said that the only solution to the problem of the PLO was a military one. But in matters purely military nobody can find fault with Eitan. The execu- tion of the Lebanese war could not have been more ef- fective. One of his peacetime achievements was to reduce the number of training fatalities by 40 percent. It is therefore ironic that his 26-year-old son Yoram was killed in 1981 when piloting a practice flight. Eitan had lost his only other son who died during an asthma attack when just 10. These tragedies are shared by his wife Miriam and their three daughters. Eitan is still very much the farmer who disdains the "cocktail circuit" and is no after-dinner speaker. Mak- ing no bones of his dislike of modern sophistication, he yearns for the austere val- ues of the pioneering days and regrets what he sees as the negative values that af- fluence is introducing to Is- raeli society. But inevitably history will judge Eitan's military career by the war in Leba- non, during his record fifth year in office. American Red Cross Time on your hands? We could use those hands. Join us. A Riblic Sernce of ThG Newspaper & The AdverbAing Council,PO Friday, September 17, 1982 107 Best wishes for a happy, healthy New Year May the coming year be filled DENNIS, MONA, ROBYN & SETH STERN lariDn with health and 111\15 illt13"2 happiness for to all our friends all our family and relatives and friends LOU & ESTHER STYBEL JERRY, FRAN, MARCI & MARK UZANSKY We wish our family and friends a very healthy, happy and prosperous New Year MR. & MRS. GERALD CLAYTON & FAMILY : We wish our family and friends a very healthy, happy and prosperous New Year AARON & TILLIE ROSEN We wish our family and friends a very healthy, happy and prosperous New Year MR. & MRS. HARRY SCHLOMPER ,. Wishing all our family and friends a year of health and happiness , LOS ANGELES, CA. NATE & SARA FEINSTEIN , .,. , xFfs. - , Wishing all our family and friends a year of health and happiness AVRUM & CLARA FEINSTEIN - tf ,.. , ;,- . Wishing all our family and friends a year of health and happiness LIZ & LOU FREEMAN , , Wishing all our family and friends a year of health and happiness THE FRIEDMAN'S, EARL, ADELE, HELENE, MICHAEL 'l am Anc'- ,. Wishing all our family and friends a year of health and happiness HELEN SOLARZ & FAMILY -