we fail to spot the signs of a war. But has any of you asked yourselves something I find myself wondering from time to time? Is there not a similar risk if we miss the signs of an opportunity for peace?” His words stuck with me for the rest of my time in public life. They also had a strong impact on me at the time. One of the benefits of my job was that I could read the full inquiry report from the 1973 war, including the portions that had been kept classified. Some dealt with the political situation before the war. Golda had relied heavily on a “kitchen cabinet” of trusted ministers and a few close advisers. The inquiry material described how Sadat had been extending negotiating feelers before the war. And how Golda, Eli Zeira, Dado and Dayan had responded. It was like an exercise in collective reinforcement. They agreed the Arab countries would not simply go on living with the humiliation of their defeat in 1967. At some stage, they would try to regain the initiative, on the battlefield. But none appeared to think through the implications of this for our political approach. Perhaps, like Eli Zeira in 1967, they assumed a kind of historical inevitability of Israeli trrumph. Though we’d ending up prevailing in 1973, it was impossible not to wonder whether, as Shlomo suggested, we had missed the signs of a possible peace beforehand. Now, however, we were facing an escalating challenge from an enemy with no interest in peace: the armed Palestinian groups. The Democratic Front took over a school in northern Israel a half-year after the war. In March 1975, Fatah had seized the Savoy. And about a year into my posting in the Airya, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine launched an even more audacious operation. It became known by the name of the airport where the ordeal ended. Entebbe. And when it began I, like Uzi Yairi, was sitting at my desk. 164 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028012