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1982 Lebanon War, with two sons fighting on the ground, he’d been a rare voice of
common sense, and caution, in the Begin cabinet. I’d also seen him operate in
Shamir’s inner security cabinet, when I would come, as deputy chief of staff, to
present military operations for approval. I remember one occasion when an air
force general laid out the details of a planned helicopter-borne mission into
Lebanon. I added a few remarks in summary. Raful Eitan and Arik Sharon were
both ministers. Within seconds, they were peppering the general and me with
questions. Why were the aircraft taking one route north instead of another? Why
not closer to Mount Hermon? Shouldn’t they fly lower? Levy interrupted.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “we are not in company commanders’ course. We’re in the
inner cabinet of the government of Israel. We have a chief of staff and other
generals and military professionals. It’s their job to decide the operational details.
Our job is to balance the reasons for doing an operation against the risks as
presented to us.”

I met with him in the Knesset cafeteria before Bibi went off to the Wye River
summit. Levy now headed a small breakaway faction from Likud called Gesher,
Hebrew for “bridge.” Without explicitly suggesting we join forces, I explained my
hope to run my eventual campaign for Prime Minister in alliance with a few other
parties. I told him I wanted to make my candidacy a legitimate choice for voters
from the center-right, the Orthodox, as well as the Russian community. I took a
napkin and drew a big umbrella to illustrate what I had in mind. He said he
understood – though he did tell me to make sure I tore up the napkin. There came a
point, at the end of November when it looked like my overture had failed.
Scampering for a way to shore up his coalition, Bibi tried to lure Levy into the fold
back by offering him the Finance Ministry. But with resistance from other
ministers, Bibi broke off the talks with Levy, leaving him humiliated and furious. I
met with him several more times, and we brought in Gesher as our first “One
Israel” partner. The second to join us, early in the new year, was a small religious
party called Meimad, inspired by an openly pro-peace Orthodox rabbi named
Yehuda Amital and including a former Chief Rabbi of Norway, Michael Melchior.

By the end of January 1999, several months before the real campaign, I was
feeling better about where we stood, in part because of a series of hits Bibi was
taking from former friends and allies. The first salvo was fired by Misha Arens,
who had helped engineer Bibi’s move into national politics. He announced he was
going to put himself forward for the Likud leadership before the election, saying

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