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The Rabin File: An Unauthorized Expose

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DR. URI MILSTEIN P. O. Box 9003, Ramat Ef'al, 52190 Israel, Tel: 972-3 -6351062, Fax: 972- 3- 5351012 E-mail: urimilsh@inter.net.il AUTHOR'S COMMENT My book, "The Rabin File - An Unauthorized Expose", originally appeared in Hebrew, in April 1995, half a year before Rabin's assassination. As any reader will discover, I have described in detail the military activities of Rabin, including his flight from the battlefield as a brigade commander in Israel's War of Independence in 1948, and argued that Rabin knew nothing about army reality and the military ethos, and that he had actually failed in all his activities in this area. The most dramatic vindication of my argument was provided by his very assassination: half a year after his murder, a National Inquiry Commission headed by Supreme Court Justice Me'ir Shamgar determined that the General Security Service, whose responsibility it was to protect the Prime Minister, had failed in its performance, and that the entire intelligence apparatus and the system for ensuring the Prime Minister's safety had been woefully flawed. Prime Minister Rabin was directly in charge of the activities of the GSS, so that this awful failure was not only that of then-head of the GSS, Carmi Gillon, but of Rabin himself. Which means that Yitzhak Rabin was one of those responsible for the success of his murderer. I said this in the Israeli media immediately after his assassination. The result: my book about Rabin was banned in Israel, the bookstores refused to carry it, historians and intellectuals refused to relate to it and to discuss it in the newspapers, on the radio or on TV, my employ at Bar Ilan University and the College of Judaea and Samaria was terminated, and I could not secure any position in any Israeli university. From that time on, I have had no permanent employment or steady income. This attitude towards me supports one of the main theses of the theory that I have developed in my work, "The General Theory of Security -- The Survival Principle" (which also appeared in English( namely, that the security setup has become a religion, and most people regard army generals as superior God-like personalities immune to criticism. Thus, the security framework is anti-intellectual; processes of drawing practical lessons and correction of errors do not exist in it, and it functions at a dangerously low level. These shortcomings became apparent in the American army in the Vietnam War and in the Soviet army in Afghanistan, and have now surfaced in the IDF in its war with the Hizbullah in South Lebanon. Conclusion: Only our ability to critically analyze the performance of generals and statesmen like Yitzhak Rabin can enable us to understand the military ethos and army reality, improve the security systems of the democratic countries, and avert the danger of terrorist activity that makes use of nonconventional means, which, more than any other factor, poses a threat to Western culture. Yours Uri Milstein

In this book, "The Rabin File", Dr. Milstein shatters the myth of Yitzhak Rabin, "Mr. Security" - the nickname that brought him to power in the '92 Israeli elections. Almost everyone who follows Israeli and middle eastern politics wonders what brought "Mr. Security" to sign the Oslo agreement that took Israel back to the days of the war of independece in 1948. It is even more preplexing if we consider the political background of this move which is the defeat of the IDF (the Israeli army) by the hands of stone throwing children of the Arab "Intifada". Milstein's book starts us on the path to the explanations of these two events.

"The Rabin File" is a biography of Rabin. It begins with Rabin's childhood as an unwanted child of an extreme communist agitator in Haifa. It continues to describe Rabin's career as an officer in the Hagana (the jewish semi-underground defense forces during the days of the British mandate in Palestine) where he distinguished himself as a reliable tool in the hands of the leaders of the jewish institutions who used him for actions against the opposition. To them (his leaders) Rabin most important characteristic was his total misunderstnding of military issues and his servility.

Dr. Milstein then describes the battles in which Rabin participated or commanded. The climax is the story of a convoy to Jerusalem which Rabin commanded. When the convoy entered an Arab ambush Rabin fled for his dear life. The rest of his brigade's operations he commanded from a safe distance, usually in his HQ in Jerusalem.

Dr. Milstein uses Rabin's biography to demonstrate the character of the IDF and the general "survival principle" that he develops more deeply in his other books. But even without any knowledge of this principle, this book is most important as it brings to light the real character of Rabin, creator of the Oslo agreement. I can hardly wait for the second part of Rabin's biography that will cover his life from '48 till his murder in '92.

This book could and should be read as a sample of a very important revision and as such as a piece of far- reaching historiography. It shows the pivotal role myth making plays in contemporary politics and highlights the need for a search for truth and how far actually this has been lacking. Implicitly the reader can detect the degree to which superficiality has taken over from properly founded research in the creation of standardised interpretation. Therefore the book, as an expose, is something special academically. It is a product of the willingness to question 'orthodox' opinion and to research in detail and to document fearlessly. Therefore author and publisher are to be congratulated on being willing to allow scholarship to advance by the production of a book that spells out in no uncertain terms just what may well be the terrible truth about the 'real' Rabin. In the light of the eulogies about him this brave appraisal is all the more important. Truth is a casualty through death as well as war: President Kennedy's status changed as a result of his assassination and the same to some degree may be true of Rabin. But this change may be anything but beneficial for the way in which Israel runs its democratic processes and understands its position vis a vis its neighbours' intentions. With Rabin neither the master strategist nor 'Mr Security' much is open to question and needs to be. This book starts everyone thinking differently. And it does so with diligence and thoroughness.

Uri Milstein is unique among the new historians because his focus on the events of the War of Independence also pays major attention to Yitzhak Rabin's conduct and leadership. The same commander receives much less attention from the other new historians. This book portrays Rabin harshly and unsparingly as a weak-minded uncultured chain-smoking drinker, and as a coward who was promoted despite his many leadership failures in battle. In writing such a deep-level criticism of Yitzhak Rabin (a new martyr and an internationally famous symbol of Israeli-Arab peace agreements), Uri Milstein takes on a deeply entrenched Israeli Labor party political-academic myth-defending juggernaut. Whether he has written the truth or not might be disputed, but there is no question that Milstein's career has suffered as a result of his negative Rabin appraisals. This book deserves reading and attention unless its claims can be disproven by other historians...which so far as this writer knows, has not occurred. In the book Uri Milstein does write about denials and threats by other scholars and political figures to sue him for libel...but according to Milstein, such suits were never brought to court. It may be that denials were issued, and negative realities ignored, in order to protect Rabin's legend. In his book, Milstein provides not one instance (Rabin's commonly-known collapse in the Six-day War), but a pattern, of Yitzhak Rabin collapsing mentally or taking naps during military crises or of his fleeing from battle when things turned to the worse (leaving his men behind under the most desperate circumstances). According to Milstein, Rabin's failures were covered by his fellow Palmachnics for the sake of their own political and military survival, even as they themselves felt perplexed by his lack of leadership. If anything, this book raises an alarm by showing the possible dangers to a nation brought about by a political myth-making apparatus which turns a human being into a legend or symbol. In order for such a symbol or myth to exist, truths must be ignored or forgotten. If what Uri Milstein has written is true, it is also probable that much of Israel and the world would not want to hear about it.

"As someone that was spellbound my the mystique of Yitzhak Rabin, I can guarantee you that THE RABIN FILE can be a very sobering book. As a resident of Jerusalem...I'm living with the consequences of his many blunders."

Daniel Ardel - Jerusalem