Word: palmach
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...spent force, Arafat needed Rabin. And in turn Rabin needed the Chairman. Like Arafat, Rabin had not intended to make a life of soldiering; he too wanted to go to the U.S. to become an engineer. But he had earned a reputation as a gifted military commander in the Palmach, the commando unit of the Haganah underground army. On the eve of his country's war for independence in 1948, Rabin was persuaded by his military superiors to abandon his study plans and join the battle. He was charged with helping to break the Arab blockade of Jerusalem...
...forced him to postpone his plans to study hydraulic engineering at the University of California. Instead he joined the Haganah, the Jewish underground army (to which his mother had also belonged), and was swiftly invited by the swashbuckling Moshe Dayan, then a young commander, to join the Palmach, an elite strike force...
Within a month Rabin was participating in the daring sabotage raids for which the Palmach was renowned. In Syria his job was to slither up telephone poles and cut the wires so the pro-Nazi forces of Vichy France could not send for reinforcements. By 1944 he had been promoted to deputy battalion commander and had developed such a reputation as a shrewd military strategist that senior officers regularly sought his advice or opinions...
After the war the British government prevented the immigration of Holocaust survivors from Europe and forced the return of those who had already entered "illegally," actions that drew the wrath of Jewish settlers in Palestine. In the fall of 1945, thanks to his growing status in the Palmach, Rabin found himself a key participant in a dramatic raid to rescue 200 Jewish refugees whom the British were holding at the Athlit detention camp...
Rabin and Peres are both masters of upmanship. A leader of Israel's elite Palmach commandos in 1948 and a hero of the 1967 war, Rabin seldom loses a chance to one-up his Defense Minister on military matters. During briefings by Peres (who never served in uniform), Rabin has been known to swivel impatiently in his chair, scowl and then ignore his minister by shooting questions directly at uniformed generals present. Complains a Peres aide: "Right from the start, Rabin was out to humiliate Peres in any way he could...