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crossing the swollen river? Why hadn’t I taken the time to check the current
several miles downriver inside Israel? And couldn’t we have moved more
quickly on the way in, even with the delay in crossing the river?

I was aware of, and grateful for, the confidence Avraham had shown in me.
He had taken a chance in choosing me to lead the sayeret’s first, critical
operation. He must surely have had doubts about whether I could handle the
task. Years later, I asked him about it. He told me that he’d been relying on
intuition. Yes, he realized I’d had no experience of a real cross-border mission.
But that was true of everyone else in the unit as well. He was convinced that the
tools needed for success were self-confidence, attention to detail and an ability to
think and act in response to what happened on the ground – all qualities which
he was confident that I possessed.

Now that we had provided Israel access to communications in the north of
the Golan, there was a demand for us to do the same in other parts of the
Heights. I was involved in nearly all of the missions we were asked to undertake
in the months that followed, either as commander of the main force or the
hillutz. I was also soon training a new team of recruits for future operations. But
perhaps the most important sign of Avraham’s confidence was to involve me in
early efforts to broaden Sayeret Matkal’s experience and reach beyond pure
intelligence missions – to create a true special forces unit that could fight as
well.

Early in 1963, we hosted a visit to the unit by Colonel Albert Merglen, a
veteran of France’s colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria, and commander of
the airborne commando force known as the 11th Demi-brigade Parchutistes de
Choc. As the colonel looked on, I led a sayeret team on a live-fire raid in a
training area not far from Lod Airport. We attacked a position protected by
trenches and concrete barriers and stormed a two-story building. Eager to
impress Mergelen, Avraham even insisted on our wearing French-style berets in
place of helmets. I assume it was the attack more than the berets that did the
trick. But a couple of months later, Merglen proposed a series of exchanges. The
first would involve an officer from Sayeret Matkal officer spending eight weeks
on a counter-guerrilla commanders’ course in the parachutistes’ training
headquarters.

Avraham picked me to go. The French base was in a 17th-century fortress
near Mont Louis, in the Pyrenees along the Spanish border. I’d never been
outside Israel, at least legally. I had no passport. I didn’t own a suit or a tie. But
within days, I was kitted and fitted. I boarded an El Al flight to Paris and, on a

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