The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine by Miko Peled Page B

discussion, but his lectures at the dinner table were always illuminating, and I received much of the confidence I have in my identity as a Jewish Israeli from him.
    Yitzhak Rabin, then prime minister, also attended my father’s funeral, as protocol called for it. But he never called to say farewell to my dying father as all his other comrades in arms did, nor did he visit our home during the Shiv’a , the traditional seven days of mourning, to express his condolences. Tragically, eight months later, Rabin too was dead—murdered by a Jewish boy who was raised on the toxic mix of Orthodox Judaism and radical Zionism. It was the end of an era and the beginning of great uncertainty.

     
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    1   Matti Peled, “The beauty has not faded,” Ma’ariv , June 15, 1973.
    2   The 1973 Mideast War, also called The Yom Kippur War, began on the Jewish Holiday of Yom Kippur, October 6, 1973. Egyptian and Syrian forces attacked Israel and caught the IDF by surprise, which resulted in panic and many casualties. A special inquiry, the Agranat Commission was set up to investigate the IDF failings. It found IDF top brass responsible and several generals, including the IDF chief of staff, had to resign. Prime Minister Golda Meir, who remained unscathed by the commission, had to resign as well as a result of popular protests.
    3   Matti Peled, “The Palestinian Problem,” Ma’ariv , June 27, 1969.
    4   Matti Peled, “Thoughts at Beginning of the Fourth Year,” Ma’ariv , June 5, 1970.
    5   Matti Peled, “Who Heard of the Palestinians?” Ma’ariv , March 23, 1973.
    6   Fedayeen are people who volunteer to fight for a cause. They were Palestinian freedom fighters, but to us the name meant terrorists.
    7   Henri Curiel, an Egyptian-Jewish communist, living in exile in Paris, played a key role in facilitating the opening of these contacts. He was assassinated in 1978. It remains a mystery who killed him.
    8   Matti Peled, “My meetings with PLO representatives,” Ma’ariv , July 1, 1977.
    9   Palestinian-Israelis are Palestinians who live within Israel and have Israeli citizenship. Israelis usually refer to them as “Arab-Israelis” Around 1.5 million Palestinians live in Israel as Israeli citizens.
    10   Sima Kadmon, “Rabin Does Not Want Peace,” Ma’ariv , August 16, 1993.
    11   Matti Peled, “A Requiem to Oslo” The Other Israel 65 (February-March 1995).
    12   Walid Khalidi, “Converging tracks,” The Other Israel , April 1995, Cambridge, MA. http://israelipalestinianpeace.0rg/issues/66toi.htm#Converging
    13   Uri Avnery, “I shall not see his like again,” Ma’ariv , March 3, 1995. Archived at http://www.israelipalestinianpeace.0rg/issues/66t0i.htm#I

PART II
A Long Way from Home
     
     

Chapter 4:
The Red Beret
     
    It was 1974, and as I moved from elementary school to high school, it became clear that I was not only still behind academically, but that I had another issue as well, one that had not surfaced until then and may well have been genetic: a big mouth. There were subjects about which I could not and would not keep silent, regardless of who I was facing. Later on, I realized that there was one exception, one person in front of whom I did keep silent—my father.
    During the first talk my class had with the vice principal on the issue of discipline on school grounds, I argued with him that his idea of discipline was archaic and unfair. My homeroom teacher, who taught math and physics, topics with which I had trouble anyway, was a recent immigrant from Eastern Europe. He was stern, uncompromising, and insecure. He never smiled, and he did not believe in second chances. I was terrified the entire time I was in his class and couldn’t function.
    By the end of my first year in high school, I had even alienated the physical education teacher, although I was a good athlete and actually liked both the teacher and the class. He was an old-fashioned instructor, and he would make the lives