{"id":16892,"date":"2018-04-18T07:45:01","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T04:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onisilos.gr\/?p=16892"},"modified":"2018-04-18T07:45:01","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T04:45:01","slug":"how-israel-became-a-naval-startup-nation-with-the-famous-boats-of-cherbourg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onisilos.gr\/?p=16892","title":{"rendered":"How Israel became a naval startup nation with the famous boats of Cherbourg"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ABRAHAM RABINOVICH<\/span>
\n17 April 2018, 10:13 am<\/span><\/p>\n

When a young journalist had a startling hunch about Israel’s military capacity, a lot of persistence persuaded the navy to go to great (secret) lengths to help him verify it<\/span><\/p>\n

On New Year\u2019s Eve 1970, Israel Radio reported the arrival in Haifa of five newly built Israeli patrol boats which had escaped from a Cherbourg shipyard where they had been embargoed by the French government for political reasons. The brazen getaway on Christmas Eve into the teeth of a Force Nine gale raging in the English Channel galvanized the international media. News organizations sent up planes looking for the boats during the coming week as they raced for home.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

I had joined The Jerusalem Post just a few months before and thought \u201cWhat a great story.\u201d I was sure that veteran Israeli journalists would soon get their teeth into it. However, the story behind the story would be classified and remained hidden.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fast forward five years. Israel\u2019s top military brass, academics and other experts were participating in an international symposium in Jerusalem on the Yom Kippur War, two years before. At my paper, coverage of key panels was divided among reporters. One of the events not covered was a talk by the navy commander, Admiral Binny Telem. I followed the media closely, but had heard virtually nothing of naval activities in the war. Curious about what Telem might have to say, I dropped in after finishing my assignment.<\/span><\/p>\n

His talk proved astonishing. The navy, he revealed, had not only been involved in battles against the Egyptian and Syrian fleets but had engaged in battles, for the first time since the invention of cannon, involving not guns but missiles with built-in radar which enabled them to pursue moving targets.<\/span><\/p>\n

No other navy in the West had such a weapon system.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Unknown to Israel when it began its project, the Soviet Union was also developing missile boats. It was these vessels, passed on to the Arab navies, that Israel would encounter in the Yom Kippur War. The Arabs had twice as many missile boats as Israel and their missiles had twice the range of Israel\u2019s, which enabled them to always get in the first salvos.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the Soviet-made vessels did not have what the Israeli vessels had \u2013 electronic and other systems to divert incoming missiles by providing them with false targets. All 54 missiles fired at the Israeli vessels missed, throwing up enormous geysers as they exploded in the sea. Almost all the Arab warships which engaged were sunk, without a single Israeli loss.<\/span><\/p>\n

After three days, the Arab navies did not venture out of their harbors and the vital sea lanes to Haifa remained open. Compared to the fierce battles waged by Israel on land and in the air, with their heavy losses, the total victory at sea was stunning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Again, I thought, \u201cWhat a story.\u201d But amidst all the revelations that emerged at the symposium, Telem\u2019s talk drew scant attention.<\/span><\/p>\n

Epiphany, mid-stride<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\nFast forward another six years. 1981. Walking down the Ben-Yehuda pedestrian mall in central Jerusalem, thinking random thoughts not connected to the navy, I had an epiphany that stopped me in my tracks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Might those missile boats that performed so brilliantly in the 1973 war be the same \u201cpatrol boats\u201d that had escaped from Cherbourg a few years earlier? That would really be a story.<\/span><\/p>\n

It could, among other things, explain why the Israeli government had risked its diplomatic relations with France in order to run off with five embargoed patrol boats. Perhaps they were not simple patrol craft, as we had been told, but platforms that were to be converted to revolutionary missile boats.<\/span><\/p>\n

This time I decided to grab the story by the neck. I wrote to then-Defense Minister (and future 7th president of Israel) Ezer Weizman to outline the story that had taken shape in my head, and to ask whether I would have the ministry\u2019s cooperation if I wrote a book about it. The minister himself replied: The subject was too sensitive, he wrote, to be made public at this time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Implicitly, however, he had confirmed that the missile boats were indeed the Cherbourg boats. Weizman was not long afterwards replaced by Ariel Sharon to whom I sent a similar query and from whose office I received a similar reply. In 1983, Sharon was forced out after the Sabra\/Shatilla massacre in Beirut and the defense portfolio was temporarily shifted to prime minister Menahem Begin.<\/span><\/p>\n

I duly sent the same query to the prime minister\u2019s office. This time I was informed that it had been forwarded to the navy.<\/span><\/p>\n

To my delight, I shortly received an invitation to naval headquarters in Tel Aviv. The navy captain who heard me out was encouraging. At his request, I left a copy of a book I had written on the 1967 battle for Jerusalem for him to look at and a follow-up meeting was arranged soon after. This one proved awkward. The captain, looking solemn, said that the navy had recently cooperated with an Israeli navy veteran who made a feature film about his unit. The navy command was unhappy with the results and a decision had been made \u2013 apparently after my request \u2014 not to lend the navy\u2019s prestige again to any such outside enterprise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Deeply disappointed, I made ready to rise when the officer stopped me<\/span><\/p>\n