Yatom’s mission now is to complete the peace process. And to pull it off, he’ll be relying mostly on military men. While generals are nothing new in Israeli politics, Barak has culled his peace junta almost exclusively from the elite troops who served under him in the Army, sidelining prominent political figures in the process. His bureau chief, Mendel Shaked, served under him in the Sayeret Matkal or general reconnaissance unit. Chief foreign-policy adviser Zvi Shtauber worked with him in military intelligence. And even the man charged with restarting the deadlocked Wye accords, Gilad Sher, was a colonel in the Armored Corps Barak commanded. No one argues that these men know how to make war. The question is, can they fight for peace?
One thing is clear: Barak’s military legacy played an important part in his election last May. The Sayeret commando unit, where he began his career, carries an almost sacred aura in Israel for its part in daredevil missions–among them, the raid on Entebbe Airport to rescue hostages in 1976, and the assassination of Palestinian leaders in Beirut in 1973. That aura rubbed off on Barak more than anyone else. On his way to the Army’s top job, he became its most decorated soldier. The honor enabled him to call on dedicated veterans of the Sayeret during his campaign. Yoni Koren, Barak’s former chief Army aide, ran his campaign and drafted 300 former Sayeret men to organize it. Amnon Biran, who coordinated intelligence-gathering during the Entebbe mission, led the push for Russian votes in Jerusalem. “We found at least one volunteer in every town who had served in the Sayeret,” says Biran. “Not all of them knew Barak in the Sayeret, but every one of them knows the legend of Barak.” One of the few Sayeret old boys who didn’t campaign for Barak was his opponent, Benjamin Netanyahu, an outsider who never really belonged to the tight fraternity of illustrious ex-commandos.
Netanyahu isn’t the only one on the outs. The dovish politicians from Barak’s own Labor Party who engineered the first peace treaties with the Palestinians have no part in the peace process now. Shimon Peres was rewarded for his attempts to undermine Barak within the Labor Party with the largely meaningless post of minister for regional development. Yossi Beilin, the architect of the Oslo accords, got the Justice Ministry, but no peace role. Barak’s aides say they were chosen because the final stages of peace talks with the Palestinians and the reopening of negotiations with Syria will demand people with deep knowledge of Israel’s security needs. But their soldierly loyalty to Barak was obviously a plus. “These men are married twice–once to their wives, and once to Barak,” says Ilan Kfir, Barak’s biographer. Some legislators say that will make it tough for them to question the prime minister’s judgment. “He is behaving like the commander of an army unit, not a government,” says Tamar Gozansky, a left-wing member of Parliament. “He’s making a kind of dictator- ship and it’s very, very dangerous for our democracy.”
Barak advisers insist there’s a genuine exchange of ideas in discussions with the prime minister. “It doesn’t matter what your rank is,” says Shtauber, the foreign- policy adviser. “If you are a junior officer but he thinks you are smart, that’s all that matters.” That, and the ability to follow the chain of command. Barak likes aides who implement his policies without question, says biographer Kfir, and without undermining their boss the way some Israeli pols have in the past. In fact the joke around the Knesset is that when it comes to the really big decisions, Barak only consults his Defense minister. His name: Ehud Barak.
