Political maneuvering behind appointment of Israeli chief‑of‑staff in late 1990s

I was grateful not only to Shamir for naming me chief-of-staff, but to Rabin and Misha. Both had honored the assurance Yitzhak had given me that I’d be Dan’s successor. I also discovered Misha had played an even greater role than I’d assumed. I knew there would be other candidates for the job. The strongest turned out to be Yossi Peled, who was the head of the northern command and possessed the undoubted credentials to be an excellent chief-of-staff. What I hadn’t been aware of was the sentiment among some in the Likud that I was the wrong choice politically. Not only had been born on a Labor kibbutz. There was the small matter of the article in Hadashot several years earlier, imagining me as a Labor leader going head-to-head in a future election against Bibi Netanyahu for the Likud. Yossi was assumed to be more of a Likudnik, and a few weeks before Dan left office, I learned how Misha had rebutted the suggestion I was politically unfit to lead the armed forces. He was visiting the north and was taken aside by a group of Likud activists who asked how he could possibly be thinking of supporting Barak — a Labor guy — for chief-of-staff. At first, Misha didn’t reply. But one woman kept pressing him. “Do you have children in the army?” he asked. “Yes. I have a son in the Golani Brigade,” she replied proudly. “So let’s assume your son is going on a raid across the border. Would you want his company to be led by the best commander in the battalion? Or by a commander who’s Likud?” “The best commander, of course,” she said. To which Misha said: “Well we do, too.” 240 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028088