A Soldier's Story: The Life and Times of an Israeli War Hero [Hardcover]

Raful Eitan (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Hebrew

Product Details

• Hardcover: 388 pages
• Publisher: Sure Sellers Inc (April 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561710164
• ISBN-13: 978-1561710164
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,223,613 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hes Swartzkopf, Patton, and Biblical David Rolled In One!, April 9, 2003

By 

Maximillian Ben Hanan (Sacramento, California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Soldier's Story: The Life and Times of an Israeli War Hero (Hardcover)

Raful Eitan is a name that anyone who has read the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict should know. He has lived through the entire history from British Mandate Palestine to the modern State of Israel. His autobiography chronicles his life and opinions from his days in pre-1948 Palmach (Israeli Shock Troopers and Pioneers), to being a highly decorated and combat experienced paratrooper, to his days as Minister of Defense, to his service during the highly controversial Operation Peace for Galilee (the 1982 Lebanon-Syria-PLO-Israel War).

He minces not one of his words and tells the entire tale in this 1992 paperback book's 388 pages. Every word of the book is exciting or engaging from moments of intense action to moments of intense reflection. Perhaps, one of the most interesting aspects of Eitan's outlook is that he bears the Palestinian-Arabs and other Arabs no animus or hate. He grew up with them as a Sabra (native-born Israeli) and feels sympathy towards them for the way that tyrannical Arab governments have manipulated the refugees without helping them. He hopes and prays to one day live in peace with all of the Arabs.

Perhaps most revealing are Eitan's parting words (Page 388):

-------------------------------

"Most importantly, in our struggle for survival we must not grow impatient. We must remain strong and steadfast. We must wait until the winds of change that are sweeping through Eastern Europe bring similar changes to our region. We must wait until our Arab neighbors see the advantages of peace and give up their campaign to destroy us. Only through strength can peace be achieved."

-------------------------------

His words seem almost prophetic in these days of change in the Middle East. Arab governments are slowly seeing their governments change through death of the previous strong man (Syria) to an aging king that will soon see a change of power in his country (Jordan) to a radical government that pushed a superpower too far (Iraq). Those winds of change that transformed Eastern Europe that Eitan prophesized certainly seem to have arrived in the Middle East. We can only hope and pray that peace will finally come to stay in the troubled Middle East. And until that day arrives, we can hope and pray that Israel remains strong waiting for the arrival of peace.

I highly recommend this excellent autobiography of one of Israel's most distinguished soldiers, farmers, leaders, and citizens.

Review by: Maximillian Ben Hanan

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Hero of Biblical Proportions, November 19, 2007

By 

Gary Selikow (Great Kush) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Soldier's Story: The Life and Times of an Israeli War Hero (Paperback)

Raful Eitan was one of Israel's greatest sons, taking part in all of Israel's wars of defence from the 1948 War of Independence to the 1982 Peace for Galilee War.


He was also a farmer and later a member of the Knesset and a leader of great vision.
Raful Eitan died under strange circumstances off the port of Ashdod in a drowning incident on 23 November 2004.

In this book Raful tells of his life from his birth into poverty at Moshav Tel Adashim.
Eitan describes life on the Moshav where he was born during the 1929 Arab pogroms against Jewish communities in the Land of Israel, and witnessed the 1936 pogroms at the age of seven, witnessing murder and the burning of fields and Jewish houses by Arab mobs.
The book is written with great humour, passion and love of his people and homeland.
In 1939, at the age of ten, he joined the Gadna, the youth wing of the Hagannah Jewish Defence organization.
In 1947 he joined the Palmach, the Haganah's elite striking force and describes the Arab atrocities he witnessed, after Arab armies and terror bands had attacked the Jews of Palestine, after the UN voted for the creation of a tiny Jewish State.
A convoy bringing supplies to troops and Jewish civilians came under fire from an Arab ambush near the village of Hulda on the road to Jerusalem.
"It was a terrible slaughter. We were not organized for a counter attack and could not even rescue our wounded. During the day and most of the night the wounded were abandoned to our attackers.Once the attackers had left, we went to retrieve the bodies of our beloved compatriots and discovered their burned and mutilated bodies. One of the drivers, who managed to hide from the Arabs, told us that the Arabs had abused the wounded and then poured fuel on them and burned them alive. This was the first time I had been exposed to this type of atrocity and it taught me that the Arab soldier came from a different culture, with a different fighting ethic".
Eitan describes how the Israeli army always does all they can to avoid the loss of the lives of enemy civilians, even risking the lives of their own soldiers to do this.
Never has any army, in any conflict, been so scrupulous in trying to avoid the spilling of the blood of noncombatants as the Israelis.
Eitan candidly describes the feelings and opinons about various Israeli millitary leaders such as Moshe Dayan, David 'Dado' Eleazar, and Ariel 'Arik' Sharon.
He makes no bones about his dislike for Moshe Dayan.

Eitan descibes his anger at a foreign camera crew that taunted the Israeli forces at the beginning of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, at a particularly difficult phase of the war for the Israelis.
The Syrians had attacked the Jews on the holiest day of the Jewish Calendar, and the Israelis had done nothing to deserve the foreign crews spiteful laughter.
This is a clear example of the unethical and vicious prejudice of the world media towards Israel and her people.
He expresses his anger and pain at what he witnessed of the Arab terror attacks on Israeli children at Ma'alot in 1974, where PFLP terrorists slaughtered 22 innocent Jewish children, without regard to their age and innocence.
He also expresses the heartbreak at the gruesome site of a murder by Arab terrorists of a Jewish mother and her two small children at Nahariya. that same year.
As Chief of Staff, Eitan played a very large role in fostering a relationship between the Christian Lebanese suffering under the yolk of the bloody Syrian and PLO occupation. Tens of thousands of Christian Lebanese men, women and children were massacred in cold blood by the Syrians, the PLO and the Moslem Lebanese between 1975 and the 1982 Peace for Galilee War.
In 1976 , under orders of Yasser Arafat, thousands of Christian Lebanese men, women and children were massacred at the Christian village of Damour.
The killings that took place at Sabra and Shatilla of Palestinians, when the Christians captured these terror camps , were in retaliation for the murder of Christian Lebanese people's leader Bashir Gemayel, and for the years of bloodshed inflicted on the Christians under the yolk of the PLO and their Syrian allies.
Eitan explains in a chapter in this book how Israel was guilty of no blame whatsoever for the Sabra and Shatilla incidents, despite the feeding frenzy of the world media and even the Israeli Left during the fall out after that battle.
He also describes how the alliance between Israel and the Christian Lebanese was a natural one in the light of the fact that the Arabs would never recognize the rights of Christians in Lebanon just as they would never recognize the right to exist of the Jews of Israel.
In fact this is what is at the heart of all conflicts in the region. The refusal of 300 million Moslem Arabs to recognize the human rights and self-determination of minorites in the Middle East and North Africa such as the Jews, Christian Lebanese, Kurds, Druze, Berbers, Copts , Assyrians, Chaldeans, Yazidis, Black South Sudanese, Bahais, Zoroastrians etc.
Eitan condemns the blatant lies of the world media during the Peace for Galilee War, when Eitan served as Israeli Chief of Staff, that Israel deliberately bombed civilian areas (when the truth is that Israel took care to never hurt civilians, even if it meant refraining from attacking the PLO terrorists, who hid among civilians, and knew that the Israelis would never attack them if it meant causing civilian casualties.
Compare this to the policy of Arab terrorists which has always been to target the young, the innocent, the weak and vulnerable.
In the Palestinian refugees fathers who refused to take up arms on behalf of the terrorists were frequently punished by the PLO killing his children before his eyes.
In the last chapter in the book, Eitan gives us insight into hos own analysis of the conflict, and what can be done.
He points out that " The Arabs have never accepted the fact that Israel exists as an independent sovereign state in the Middle East. Since we declared our independence the Arabs and Palestinians have tried many different startegies in their efforts to destroy our small Jewish country...During the 1920s the the Arabs used to engage in pogrom-like assaults on Jewish villages. In the 1930s the Arabs embarked on the "Great Arab Revolt". In the 1950s and early 1960s the "fedayin" used to cross into Israel and murder civilians. In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, the PLO terrorist campaign was waged without any considerations given to the concept of innocence. In the 1980s the Arabs initiated "the intifada", a violent uprising directed towards all Jews, civilian and soldier".

He points out that Arab governments do not care that peace would mean they could divert attention away from purchase of and building up of weapons and redirect the money towards education and social upliftment.
They see the goal of Israel's destruction as more important than the welfare of their own people, and have brainwashed their people to see their suffering as sacrifices in the jihad against the hated "Zionist, imperialist enemy".
Eitan rejects the idea of gving up parts of the land of Israel for peace, pointing out that this would only help and encourage the Arabs to close in to destroy Israel comletely. Eitan sees the Munich Agreement of 1938, ceding Sudetenland to Hitler, as the first time the land for peace formula
had been tried.
He reminds us that the Arabs attacked Israel three times in 1948, 1956 and 1967 and engaged in thousands of raids against Israeli women and children, before Judea, Samaria and Gaza were even liberated by Israel.
Eitan urges that Israel remain strong and not give in to the terror of the Arabs or the pressure of the enemies of Israel. That Israel must encourage settlements and immigration and encourage large Jewish families by improvimg livimg conditions.
Israel must remain strong and steadfast and stick to a fierce policy of deterrence against Arab terror and belligerancy.
"We must wait until our Arab neighbours see the the advantages of peace and give up their campaign to destroy us. Only through strength can peace be achieved".
It is a tragedy that this great hero is no longer with us in Israel's great hour of need.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hes Swartzkopf, Patton, and the Biblical David!, April 6, 2003

By 

Maximillian Ben Hanan (Sacramento, California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Soldier's Story: The Life and Times of an Israeli War Hero (Hardcover)

Raful Eitan is a name that anyone who has read the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict should know. He has lived through the entire history from British Mandate Palestine to the modern State of Israel. His autobiography chronicles his life and opinions from his days in pre-1948 Palmach (Israeli Shock Troopers and Pioneers), to being a highly decorated and combat experienced paratrooper, to his days as Minister of Defense, to his service during the highly controversial Operation Peace for Galilee (the 1982 Lebanon-Syria-PLO-Israel War).

He minces not one of his words and tells the entire tale in this 1992 paperback book's 388 pages. Every word of the book is exciting or engaging from moments of intense action to moments of intense reflection. Perhaps, one of the most interesting aspects of Eitan's outlook is that he bears the Palestinian-Arabs and other Arabs no animus or hate. He grew up with them as a Sabra (native-born Israeli) and feels sympathy towards them for the way that tyrannical Arab governments have manipulated the refugees without helping them. He hopes and prays to one day live in peace with all of the Arabs.

Perhaps most revealing are Eitan's parting words (Page 388):

-------------------------------

"Most importantly, in our struggle for survival we must not grow impatient. We must remain strong and steadfast. We must wait until the winds of change that are sweeping through Eastern Europe bring similar changes to our region. We must wait until our Arab neighbors see the advantages of peace and give up their campaign to destroy us. Only through strength can peace be achieved."

-------------------------------

His words seem almost prophetic in these days of change in the Middle East. Arab governments are slowly seeing their governments change through death of the previous strong man (Syria) to an aging king that will soon see a change of power in his country (Jordan) to a radical government that pushed a superpower too far (Iraq). Those winds of change that transformed Eastern Europe that Eitan prophesized certainly seem to have arrived in the Middle East. We can only hope and pray that peace will finally come to stay in the troubled Middle East. And until that day arrives, we can hope and pray that Israel remains strong waiting for the arrival of peace.

I highly recommend this excellent autobiography of one of Israel's most distinguished soldiers, farmers, leaders, and citizens.

Review by: Maximillian Ben Hanan