At 69, Effie with them never stops fighting.
Now he is going to war on the house, or as he calls it - "a war against the mighty forces that put the country in danger."
For this purpose he decided with them to break a long silence.
He was silent when his appointment as chairman of Yad Vashem was thwarted, and he was silent when parts of religious Zionism - the flesh and blood - joined an Arab-Islamic list to form a government. Now he talks to them about everything. They will love to read things (Bennett and Shaked, get ready), some will think they are a dangerous attack on everything they believe in, but they too should at least think about what he says.
We meet in Tel Aviv.
With them, he recently finished his job as chairman of Jenny Energy International, a subsidiary of which produces oil-splitting oil. Now that his time is up, he is turning to other things as well.
"The discourse that is taking place in the country today is superficial," he begins with them, "talking about identity, not essence. You are a Bibist or a Bentist, left or right. All this discourse is nonsense, even if that nonsense was said by an ex-president. This tribal discourse.
"The deep real debate is between the inside and the outside. When the outside takes over the inside, you become hollow. And what we see now is a huge, existential battle between our inside and the outside, as the outside becomes the essence. We attend an endless party of ideas and identities, a threatening show On our inner truth.
"Where I grew up (Kibbutz Ein Gev; YL) they said every day at the entrance to the dining room 'Noma Eretz Emek Tiferet, we are your shift.'
With this song we went in to eat and decided which unit we would go to the army, and we also got up to storm, because that was the inner truth of our connection to the country and to ourselves.
To our Judaism, not in the religious-ritual sense, but in the essential sense.
"On these shorelines of our essence a battle is being fought today. On the safe place - the family, the nation, the truth, the morality - that the outside is constantly attacking. And the tsunami is threatening to erase those shorelines."
"The combination discourse is nonsense"
Are you saying the country is in danger?
"Yes. We are in danger of assimilation within ourselves. Auto-assimilation. This tsunami I am talking about erases all coastlines. The national, territorial coastline, the names, the languages. It has washed away all democracies in the Western world, their national identities. "And erases all the essences. Now he threatens us and the wonderful villa we built here."
How does he threaten us?
"I will give you an example. One of the most distinctive characteristics of a discourse of national essence is the discourse on borders. This is the struggle for our land, and we suffer a complete defeat in it. Not in Judea and Samaria, but within us, in the Negev and the Galilee.
Are we losing the Negev and the Galilee?
"Obviously. We are no longer working. No longer farmers. No longer building. If the land is yours in essence, you are working in it and building in it. If it is part of the world, what does it matter who cultivates it, who bears fruit from it?
"This battle sweeps us through all walks of life, and it happens because we have lost touch with the essence. It is evident everywhere. In the motivation to serve in the military, and even in the military's willingness to risk and pay a price in human life. Paying billions for technologies is fine. If he is put to the test, Israeli society will not pass it.
"Our enemies recognize this weakness. When our essence was clearer, in the first decades of the country, our enemies were deterred from it. Not by military strength, because in it we were inferior in every classic military parameter, but by substantial strength. And willing to pay a price for it.
"Once upon a time the righteousness of the way was clear to us, because we knew where we came from and where we were going - to a strong, very moral Jewish state, which harnesses its past and present to the future. To get there you can and must fight the tangle. "Politics, and what will be done with the Arabs of Israel, and what the world will say. We have created a multifaceted problem here, and we have stopped looking at the target."
And today we are big and strong, and our existence here is unquestionable.
"Huge empires died upright. It was impossible to understand what brought them down. They were militarily and economically strong, but disintegrated because of an internal loss of way. Because of the inability to define their essence."
And that could happen to Israel?
"It may not. It happens. Zionism was not a landmark. It is the purpose of the journey. It is the level, the value by which we measure whether we are navigating correctly or blabbering on. Today it's all but that. ".
And not everyone is the same?
"Obviously not. You and I are the same? A man and a woman are the same? An Arab and a Jew? What if. The Arabs of Israel are citizens of the state, but they are by no means an essential part of the Zionist enterprise.
"I have many arguments for this government, but the fact that Israeli Arabs have become part of the state leadership is crossing a serious line in the internal-external struggle. Israeli Arabs have always been an external element. Not humiliated, not humiliated, with rights - but external."
enemy? danger?
"It is already the decision of the external. If he wants to take over the internal, if Ahmad Tibi wants the State of Israel to lose its Jewish, national, Zionist essence, then he begins to be a kind of enemy.
"Becoming a factor according to which the State of Israel lives or exists is a kind of absurdity that cannot be contained. When I send my sons - everyone is still in reserve - and soon my eldest grandchildren, to fight Hamas in Gaza, and the ideological Hamas sitting in government, it creates a very severe dissonance. The ideas of Mansour Abbas and the Hamas leadership in Gaza are the same. "
Are they a Trojan horse in government?
"A Trojan horse is something they are trying to hide. This is a collapse in the understanding of the essence of the State of Israel. Abbas is not even a Trojan horse. He says' I am Hamas, and you, with your tax money, will fund Hamas because you want to make political decisions. "The Jews."
Riots by Israeli Arabs in Haifa, during Operation Wall Guard.
"Israeli Arabs today are armed to an extent that does not belong to any criminal threat", Photo: Michel Dot Com
This is one-fifth of the country's citizens. Is not it better to combine them?
"The discourse of integration is nonsense. It is a foreign discourse. A discourse of identities, not of essences. Israeli Arabs are not Jews, not Zionists, not partners in the righteousness of our way. They should enjoy every human, civil, legal right,
But they will never be loyal partners in the essence of the State of Israel.
"Israeli Arabs have taken sides. They say this very explicitly. They are the internal Israeli political-political arm, designed to help the outer, military arm, which is working against us. This is a pita movement."
What is the solution?
"If the use of the rules of democracy by a minority group, even a large one, undermines the essence of the state as Jewish, Zionist and national, the rules of democracy must be treated in such a way that democracy does not kill the essence of the State of Israel."
Deny Western Israelis the right to vote?
"Until now, there has been a consensus between the right and the left: to exercise their civil right to vote, but they can not be part of the government, the executive and decision-making. Since the establishment of the state, all Zionist parties have realized that this change National of the state.Therefore they avoided it.
"This position, which was intended on the one hand to create reasonable channels of democracy for the Arab public, but not to give them a partnership in the leadership of the state, has been washed away. It will be very difficult to restore the status quo, the price will change the state's identity."
So what happened to Netanyahu who made the Arab parties legitimate and negotiated with them? And what happened to Bennett who introduced them to the government?
"Leaders are undermined by the external tsunami. It happened to Begin, it happened to Rabin, it happened to Sharon, and it happened to Netanyahu as well. Towards the end he was undermined. It first hand.
"Bennett will carry on his back to defeat this disaster. The income of Israeli Arabs into the government is equivalent to defeat in the war."
Bennett.
"Leaders are being undermined", Mark Israel Salem
And maybe it happened because everything here went to extremes. The NRP, where you grew up, also took a messianic direction and became extreme and very religious. The ultra-Orthodox also went to extremes. Maybe that was a reaction to that.
"Within the Festival of Masks and Identities, everyone was blabbering on. What you and I do here has become very rare. The ability to sit, talk. Your opinions do not have to be acceptable, but you can talk about them. Religious Zionism was supposed to be the core of the Zionist move. It did not happen."
Abbas.
"Choose a side", Photo: Gideon Markovich
"Recruit people and ideas"
Eitam is married to Illit, a father of eight and grandfather of 34 grandchildren, and lives in Moshav Nov in the Golan Heights.
He enlisted in the IDF in 1971 and did most of his service in the Golani Brigade. In Lebanon, in 2001 he was discharged from the IDF with the rank of brigadier general, after not being promoted to the rank of major general, according to his personal motives.
He joined the NRP and was elected head of the party. In 2002, he joined the Sharon government and was the Minister of Infrastructure, and later the Minister of Construction and Housing. 2010.
You paid a price because of your opinions. In the army, in politics.
"From the age of 70 I know it has only done me good. In the end, it says our lives do not rest on how many degrees or money you have collected, but who you are and what you have been and done. In that sense, I have always been good. I told my truth, without thinking about "The consequences this will have on my promotion in the army or on my admission to various circles in the State of Israel. I have done what I believe in, and that is how I live."
Do you think you did not advance in the army because of the dome and the opinions?
"My views have always been national, Jewish, Zionist, militant. They were probably feared, and most of the time used against me. There were soldiers who disobeyed, and I did not agree to back them up.
There were such things in the Golani as well, but Gabi Ashkenazi was the brigadier general there, so it was accepted as a simple thing. "
And in Givati no, because of your dome?
"Obviously. Unequivocally."
And do you think today there is less mental courage in these systems?
"Absolutely. Thoughtful courage does not come from opportunism. It comes from justifying a way. From understanding that there is truth in the world. That there is a right way and another way that is wrong, and not everything is part of some legitimate narrative. "And I'm totally fine with that."
"Before the formation of the current government, I spoke with Bennett," he reveals. "We had quite a few conversations. He told me that this government, with Lieberman and Saar, is ten degrees to the right of the Netanyahu government. "Organizational, financial, a large part of the world of media and academia. What power does he know how to resist? It's not all a matter of the number of seats. We also need justice and direction. This government has no direction."
As commander of the Galilee Design.
"I told my truth, without thinking about the consequences it will have on my promotion in the army," Photo: Roi Manor, IDF Spokesman
According to him, he is now busy formulating an alternative.
"Not politically, at this point, but ideologically. The instinct of the loser is to storm and try to retake power, even aggressively. It reminds me of Golani, when Mount Hermon was lost. The initial reaction was 'Let's storm and take it back.' But this battle failed.
"We need to get organized. Recruit people and ideas. This is what the left did after losing power. It went to the outside, liberal world, and built a whole cadre of ideas."
Is the left and the outside the same in your eyes?
"Most Jews in the State of Israel understand that without the Jewish-Zionist-nationalist idea, the whole act of the State of Israel is meaningless. The left is a very small group, engaged in injecting external ideas into the Israeli essence."
Are the grandchildren of the kibbutzniks who grew up with you in Ein Gev left? Are they outside? Are they a danger to the country?
"God forbid. That's why I say that the struggle today is not between right and left, but between inside and outside. Us, as a 'state of all its citizens'. The whole world has lost its identity. These ideas have swept Europe and America. Europe has completely lost its identity. In the United States the struggle is in full swing.
"Trump expressed it, perhaps a little rudely, when he spoke of Make America Great Again."
With three of his grandchildren.
"When I send my sons, and soon my eldest grandchildren, to fight Hamas in Gaza, and the ideological Hamas sits in the government, it creates severe dissonance," Photo: Ancho Gush-Gini
"Empower our enemies"
Eitam says the move he is most proud of in all his years is the fact that he prevented a civil war during the disengagement.
"I received a lot of criticism then, but in my opinion it was most important of all."
If you were in the army then, would you carry out the mission?
"I would find a way not to carry it out. In '82, on the eve of a naval evacuation, I was a battalion commander in the 1st Battalion. And I'll leave the army.
He understood and told me, 'Go back to the battalion.'
The task has been assigned to others. "
He calls the disengagement itself a "crime against the residents, but mostly a crime against the truth. We were told that Hamas would engage in construction and rehabilitation, and that everything would be reversible anyway, and we would easily get in there and make order if only one missile flew here."
"We told ourselves the same story when we fled Lebanon. That we will flee, we will close the fence, and this lion will remain to cause his bones in Lebanon. Absolute nonsense. I told all the sages then that if we fled Lebanon, we would bring Lebanon here. Army against army, and we were better than them. We defended the State of Israel and its citizens, and left most of them out of the conflict. This is how an army should behave.
"The same thing in Gaza. Until the escape, we contained this conflict, including in Gush Katif. Sometimes there are branches of Zionism, of certain people, who are willing to pay a price. I was born in such a branch, in Kibbutz Ein Gev. We did not settle there underground. The state thought it was ours. , And that we should be there.
"This patent - run away, abandon the territory by hostile elements, not take care of their military development and give them a moral gift - is a huge pike. Fulfilled if the pike was reversible. But it created dynamics that have an existential risk.
"We have become cowards, and this cowardice stems first and foremost from our inability to absorb casualties, which is what stands the test of war - 'I am the only one, if need be take me with my life for the nation, because it is worth it.'
"We are intensifying our enemies today against all logic, provided we postpone the confrontation. Every chief of staff wants to roll this hot potato to come after him.
Give him some military operation, he will say that they were given a little in the head, and that without a political decision it is impossible to decide.
We have become so confused that we turn the disadvantage into an advantage.
We are told that we actually need Hamas for stability in Gaza. "
Would you work to overthrow him?
"Certainly. Hamas should be eliminated. I would give the army six weeks to finish this story. To enter Gaza, take control, collect the weapons, and then leave. We should not control Gaza, but we must not allow it to have armed rule that threatens us."
Would you do that this morning?
"Certainly. Today, and for no reason and without warning."
And in Lebanon?
"In Lebanon we will have to do it. In all the places we initiated - we succeeded. In all the places we were dragged, from the Yom Kippur War to the present day - we failed.
"The problem is that in the meantime another front has opened up for us - the Arabs of Israel. They have been at a stage of rebellion against the authority and sovereignty of the State of Israel for more than a decade. The child should be named after him. Stolen from the IDF? "
Perhaps for self-defense, because there is anarchy in the Arab sector.
"We are buying the story of criminal anarchy. It is a marginal story. Israeli Arabs today are armed to an extent that does not belong to any criminal threat."
In order to have an army, one needs an organizing and ordering factor.
"In order to have an army, we need soldiers and we need weapons. Today, there are more weapons holders in Arab society than all the reserve soldiers that the State of Israel has in the infantry brigades.
They have weapons at home, and they practice.
Anyone who travels at night in the Negev or the Galilee hears automatic shooting.
This is not a fantasy.
"They work in clans. The clan will give the order. At the moment they are fighting among themselves. They are murderers, and those who murder have already crossed the threshold of killing. But worse, they create deterrence. It is a fact that the Israeli police are afraid to act."
When will it be directed against us?
"It has already been turned against us, in deterrence, and it has been turned against us during riots during Operation Wall Guard. All the elements are already here: the weapons, the training, the willingness to kill, the formations, which may be a little different from the army, but have loyalty. In practice, Israel does not control there."
What should be done?
"I prefer not to get into it. There are no simple solutions. But it is a dramatic problem, which requires very firm and decisive treatment. To me, this problem of the internal Arab uprising is more complicated than all the external threats combined.
"Now they are part of the government, and in that sense, the Arab uprising has been immune for a good few years. Ask anyone on the street, he will tell you that Israeli Arabs are doing what they want. Take action against it. "
"Warning note to Bennett"
With them he is very disturbed by "the loss of the army's desire to fight" and "the loss of willingness of Israeli society to pay a price."
"We have been dark for victories for many, many years. The being of battle, the being of sacrifice, is moving away from us, and if they are already happening somewhere, it is usually more a prescription for disaster than a prescription for victory.
"Look what happened to Independence Day. It has become a checklist of heartbreaking stories of individuals, whose side of the page below reads: 'Wow, what a waste.' The ethos of heroism is fading. Who sent the boys to these wars.
"Decision-makers also know that it would not be good to get out of a major military event. So either they reject, or they look for risk substitutes in the form of technology, which is wonderful, but it does not win wars. Most ask reality to impose some action on them. They had a choice. "
What happened to the horses galloping in the army?
"גם הסוסים הדוהרים סופגים את הלם הצונאמי החיצוני. הם גדלים בסביבה של תקשורת פתוחה, לומדים באקדמיות צבאיות שכבר מזמן לא מלמדות כלום, וסופגים את זה. תראה מה לומדים גם במקומות שצה"ל אמור להתחנך בהם, כמו יד ושם. מקום שהוכרזתי כבלתי כשיר מבחינה מוסרית להנחיל בו את זכר השואה. אני לא רוצה להתבכיין 'אכלו לי שתו לי', אבל זאת אינדיקציה.
"יד ושם מוחק היום כל שריד לעניין יהודי ספציפי והופך את השואה לסיפור של הרוע העולמי. כאילו השואה היא סיפור של הרוע העולמי, והלקח של הרוע העולמי הוא שגם אנחנו יכולים להיות חלק ממנו. ביטא את זה סגן רמטכ"ל אחד, אמר את זה עכשיו יאיר לפיד, וכחלק מזה, גם יד ושם - שהוא זירה מאוד חשובה וחזקה בעיצוב התודעה הלאומית ותודעת הביטחון הלאומי והחוסן שלנו - הולך ונחלש".
טענו נגד המינוי שלך ליד ושם, "מי שהוא גזען כלפי אחרים לא יכול לעמוד בראש מוסד שנלחם בגזענות האולטימטיבית נגד יהודים".
"זאת טענה מופרכת. בערך כמו לטעון שמי שאומר לאשתו שהוא אוהב אותה יותר מכל הנשים, שונא את הנשים האחרות. הרי כל פטריוט ישראלי שאומר 'אחיי, מדינתי, ביתי, קודמים לאחרים', יכול להיות מואשם בגזענות. זה חלק מהצונאמי של השקר החיצוני".
אז למה התנגדו שתהיה ביד ושם?
"כי יד ושם מיצב את עצמו כמוסד אקדמי, ובתור שכזה, הוא צריך לקבל אקרדיטציה מהעולם האקדמי. והעולם האקדמי לא מקבל את זה שהשואה היתה שואת העם היהודי, אלא שהיא היתה חלק מהרבה שואות. מיעוט קטן של אנשים, שמייצגים את החיצוני אבל אוחזים בכל עמדה, לא מאפשרים ולא רוצים לאפשר כניסה לאחרים".
רצית את התפקיד הזה?
"בהחלט. שמחתי שהממשלה הקודמת פנתה אלי וביקשה ממני. ראיתי בזה שליחות גדולה. אחד הדברים שהם אינדיקציה למצבנו הוא שזאב אלקין, שיזם את המינוי הזה, ובנט ושקד, שתמכו וגם הגנו עלי בזמנו כנגד אמירות לפידיות כאלו ואחרות, פתאום שינו את עורם כשזה הפך לעניין עם הקשר פוליטי. אף אחד מהם לא התקשר להגיד 'שינינו את דעתנו, גילינו שאתה לא מתאים'. פשוט פעלו באישון לילה".
שקד. "שינתה את עורה", צילום: ארק סולטן
זרקו אותך בצד הדרך?
"כן. אבל אני לא מדבר על העלבון, אלא על התופעה. זה היה מעשה גס".
לגיטימי לא למנות אותך.
"ברור. אבל ככה לא נוהגת ממשלה, וככה לא נוהגים אנשים שבאמת מבינים ורוצים ריפוי ואיחוי. ככה נוהגת כנופיה שהשתלטה על ההגה, ועכשיו היא נוהגת לדרכה בפראות.
"אני חושב שיש היום ציבור ענק שמבין את זה. שמבין שהולכים ונכפים עלינו עניינים שהם זרים לנו לחלוטין - תרבותיים, ביטחוניים, כלכליים, לאומיים. והצונאמי הנגדי הפנימי למה שקורה פה עכשיו עתיד להתעורר. אני לא יודע סביב איזה אירוע נקודתי זה יקרה, אבל נהמת ההמון העצום הזה, ששייך לפְנים שאני מדבר עליו, הולכת ובוקעת. היא תצטרך הכנה ודרך, ועוד כל מיני דברים שאני עוסק עכשיו בהכנתם".
אתה רואה את עצמך מנהיג את זה?
"העניין האישי שלי לא רלוונטי. אבל אני משוכנע שהאמת הזאת מארץ תבקע. לאנשים נמאס מהכפייה הזאת. אני מרגיש לפעמים שאני חי באיזו אינקוויזיציה תודעתית. זה כל כך לא סובלני, וזה כל כך בז לאמת הפנימית, שאנשים אומרים לעצמם, 'די, אנחנו יהודים וישראלים, ואנחנו רוצים שהמדינה הזאת תהיה מדינתנו ולא מדינת כל דעותיה ואזרחיה וזרמיה ורעיונותיה'".
ובנט לא מבין את זה?
"אם אני יכול לרשום לבנט הערת אזהרה, היא בעניין הזה. הקול הזה לא יכול להיות מושתק, והוא לא ייאטם. הוא יבקע כל כיפה וכל קיר שיעמדו בפני האותנטיות היהודית־לאומית־ציונית שלו. מי שבאמת חפץ חיים בפוליטיקה, מעבר לזה שהוא יושב עם כתר קטן על הראש ויהיה ראש ממשלה לאיזה זמן, צריך לדעת שהקול הזה כאן, והוא יבקע בקול גדול".
shishabat@israelhayom.co.il