Despite General Yoffe’s angry protests in the command post, Avraham had told him what he’d told me back at the base: that once an operation like this was underway, only the commander on the spot could make life-or-death decisions. I was “the ramatkal in the field.” But Yoffe had also discovered that his jerrycans of gasoline were missing. He insisted that if and when I returned safely from the Golan, I be handed over to the military police.
I don’t know what I would have told the general if he’d asked me directly whether I broke into his jeep. But in the mix of celebration and relief that the Syrian operation had succeeded, I got away with what amounted to a plea- bargain. I promised both Meir Amit and Avraham — at least one of whom believed me — that it would not happen again.
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