Former Israeli chief looks at politics

Press, 29 February 1984, Page 11

Former Israeli chief looks at politics

NZPA-Reuter Geva Carmel The former Israeli Chief of Staff, Rafael Eitan, censured a year ago for his indirect role in the Beirut massacre, appears to be preparing for a career in politics by taking his hardline views to the Israeli people.

He seems intent on moving from the General Staff to Israel’s Knesset (Parliament), a route already taken by Vitzhak Rabin and onetime Defence Ministers Moshe Dayan, Ezer Weizman and Ariel Sharon.

Last October, the former Chief of Staff, aged 55, announced the establishment of “Zomet” (movement for renewed Zionism), ostensibly to champion Jewish settlement in Arab territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Since then he has made frequent lecture appearances in towns, universities and agricultural settlements like Geva Carmel, south of Haifa.

He describes Zomet as “an ideological movement,

and not a political party,” but he does not rule out running for Parliament in the next elections, due to take place before November next year.

Mr Eitan, who with Mr Sharon planned Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, was criticised for dereliction of duty by the judicial inquiry into the massacre of Palestinian refugees by

Lebanese Christian militias in September that year. As Chief of Staff, he gained a reputation for involving the Army in politics more than any previous military leader. He is also known as the quintessential soldier — such a strict disciplinarian that he once jumped out of his car to run after a soldier who was breaking regulations by going hatless. Once quoted as saying Israel should populate the occupied West Bank so densely as to leave the Arabs “like drugged cockroaches in a bottle,” Mr Eitan speaks almost no English. He is a war. hero respected even by those who oppose his Right-wing views, and the informal style of the short, leatheryfaced fighter is unique even in Israeli politics. In jeans and sweater he looks more like a carpenter from a Galilee farming village than a former general who served as a fighter pilot in the reserves.