as a good time to settle down in a way that would be impossible if I stayed on in the upper reaches of the military. Perhaps do something more academic, in a university or a policy think-tank.
For the first time, politics had some appeal, too, though I didn’t say this to him. At that point, I had no idea how, or even whether, I might get involved. But since my appearance on Moked, others seemed to assume it might happen at some stage. Out of nowhere, a leading political journalist, Hanan Kristal, had written a story in 1986 purporting to predict the successors to Israel’s political old guard: Peres and Rabin in Labor, Begin and Shamir in the Likud. It appeared in the newspaper Hadashot. The paper ran side-by-side photos of the ostensible future leaders, doctored to look older, who Hanan predicted would go head-to-head in the election of 1996, a decade away. One was Israel’s ambassador to the UN and a protégé of Misha Arens: Bibi Netanyahu. The other was me.
Rabin listened with patience to my obviously settled intention to leave, but remained firm that I should stay and become Dan’s deputy. In the end, I agreed I’d think things over and that we’d talk in a week’s time. In the meantime, I went to see two veteran generals who had found themselves in a similar situation, mentioned as possible chiefs of staff but never chosen: Arik and Ezer Weizman. I saw Arik on his farm in the Negev. He was obviously enjoying his extraordinary political rehabilitation since the Lebanon war. His expanding girth was settled into a sofa in the living room. I filled him in on my conversation with Rabin. “I’m considering leaving,” I said. “It just seems like a long time to wait, even if I do get the job after Dan. There’s a lot else I want to do in life.” Arik was probably the general most experienced in being denied the chief-of- staff's office. On at least two occasions, he might reasonably have been considered. But in a career littered with tense encounters with his superiors, it never happened. “You should stay on,” he said. You’re not that old. It'll probably be good for you, and the army, to be deputy and then chief.” The only further advice he gave me was to do all I could formally to commit Yitzhak to making me Dan’s successor after his term ended.
I visited Ezer at his home in the seaside town of Caesarea. We sat on the terrace, with Ezer’s gangly frame draped over one of the cane chairs. “Ehud, if you stay, do you think you have a good chance of being the next ramatkal,” he asked. I said that while nothing could be certain, I thought there was a good chance. He replied without hesitation: “Then stay.” He’d come close to the top job, he told me. On the eve of the Six-Day War, when Rabin had collapsed
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