Shmuel "Gorodish" Gonen (1930 – 30 September 1991) was an
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
i general and Chief of the
Southern CommandThe Israeli Southern Command , often abbreviated to Padam is a regional command of the Israel Defense Forces. It is responsible for the Negev, the Arabah, and Eilat...
of the
Israel Defense ForcesThe Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are Israel's military forces, comprising the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
during the
Yom Kippur WarThe Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to October 26, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of...
.
Born in
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of...
, Gonen immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine with his family at the age of three. He served in the
HaganahHaganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
at fourteen, and participated in the battles over
JerusalemJerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if disputed East Jerusalem is included...
in Israel's
War of IndependenceThe 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known by Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation and by Palestinians as the Catastrophe , was the first in a series of wars fought between the newly declared State of Israel and its Arab neighbours in the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict.The war...
, being wounded five times.
After the war, he remained in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), rising through the ranks of the Armored Corps.
Shmuel "Gorodish" Gonen (1930 – 30 September 1991) was an
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
i general and Chief of the
Southern CommandThe Israeli Southern Command , often abbreviated to Padam is a regional command of the Israel Defense Forces. It is responsible for the Negev, the Arabah, and Eilat...
of the
Israel Defense ForcesThe Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are Israel's military forces, comprising the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
during the
Yom Kippur WarThe Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to October 26, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of...
.
Early life
Born in
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of...
, Gonen immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine with his family at the age of three. He served in the
HaganahHaganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
at fourteen, and participated in the battles over
JerusalemJerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if disputed East Jerusalem is included...
in Israel's
War of IndependenceThe 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known by Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation and by Palestinians as the Catastrophe , was the first in a series of wars fought between the newly declared State of Israel and its Arab neighbours in the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict.The war...
, being wounded five times.
After the war, he remained in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), rising through the ranks of the Armored Corps. He commanded a tank company during the 1956
Sinai CampaignThe Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, was a military attack on Egypt by Britain, France, and Israel beginning on 29 October 1956....
, and was awarded the
Medal of CourageThe Medal of Courage is an Israeli military decoration.The medal was established in 1970 by act of law in the Knesset and can also be awarded also for actions done before 1970....
. He was later charged with overseeing the integration of the new
Centurion tankThe Centurion was the primary British main battle tank of the post World War II period, and was a successful tank design, with upgrades, for many decades. The chassis was also adapted for several other roles....
into the IDF, and later commanded the first battalion composed of these tanks.
In 1966, he was appointed commander of the 7th Brigade. It was in this capacity, during the
Six-Day WarThe Six-Day War of June 5-10, 1967 was a war between the Israel army and the armies of the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The Arab states of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria also contributed troops and arms. At the war's end, Israel had gained control of the...
, that he led his troops from the
RafahRafah is a Palestinian city in the southern Gaza Strip, but also extends into the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. Located south of Gaza, Rafah's population of 71,000 is overwhelmingly made up of Palestinian refugees. It serves as the district capital of the Rafah Governorate...
salient right up to the
Suez CanalThe Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened on November 1869, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigating around Africa...
. After the war he delivered a famous speech, entitled "My Glorious Brothers, Deserving of Fame", which included the famous line: "We looked death straight in the face, and it lowered its eyes at us."
Throughout his army years, Gonen was not well-liked by his subordinates, who viewed his methods as unjust and Draconian. He was known to set especially-low speed limits for the men of his brigade, only to flout these speed limits himself. It was also documented in a popular Israeli book "חשופים בצריח" (
"Chasufim Batzariach",
"Exposed in the Turret") that he would deliberately cause his men to fail inspections and then punish them for it. He was overly strict, often meting out severe punishment to soldiers accused of minor offenses such as failure to polish their boots. His subordinates often requested a transfer to a different unit.
In March 1968, Gonen oversaw the failed offensive
Battle of KaramehThe Battle of Karameh was fought on March 21, 1968 in the Jordanian town of Karameh between the Israel Defense Forces and a combined force of the Jordanian Army and the Palestine Liberation Organization...
in
JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in Western Asia spanning the southern part of the Syrian Desert down to the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan shares borders with Syria to the north, Iraq to the northeast, Saudi Arabia to the east and south, the Gulf of Aqaba to the southwest,...
, where
Yasser ArafatMohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority, and leader of the Fatah political...
and the PLO had their base. Nevertheless, he continued to rise through the ranks, and on 15 July 1973, he replaced
Ariel Sharon' is an Israeli general and statesman, former Israeli Prime Minister...
as Chief of the Southern Command.
Yom Kippur War and Agranat Commission
Gonen's response to the Egyptian attack during the Yom Kippur War and his actions during the first days of fighting (culminating in the disastrous attack on Hizayon on October 8) was deemed a failure by the army's General Staff, and he was replaced on 10 October by
Chaim Bar-LevChaim "Kidoni" Bar-Lev was a military officer during Israel's pre-state and early statehood eras and later a government minister.-Biography:...
. The
Agranat CommissionThe Agranat Commission was an official National Commission of Inquiry appointed by the Israeli government to investigate the circumstances leading to the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War. The Committee was headed by Shimon Agranat, Chief Justice of Israel's Supreme Court...
, which investigated the events leading up to the war, wrote about him that:
- He failed to fulfill his duties adequately, and bears much of the responsibility for the dangerous situation in which our troops were caught.
He was removed from all command upon the publication of the Commission's interim report, but this was revoked once the final report was released, and Gonen was given a new position on the General Staff. In both the media and public perception, however, he was considered responsible for many of the fiascos of the war.
Post-war
Gonen resigned from the IDF in 1974 and left for Africa, where he embarked on various business ventures. He never returned to Israel except for short visits.
In writing of Gonen in his comprehensive book on the war,
Abraham RabinovichAbraham Rabinovich is a historian and journalist who has published several books on recent Jewish history. As a reporter, his work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The New Republic, and the Christian Science Monitor. Before becoming a...
said of him:
- The most tragic figure to emerge in the Israeli military hierarchy from the war was Shmuel Gonen. The ignominy of being superseded as commander on the southern front at the height of the war was compounded by his being forced to leave the army after the final Agranat Report. Although the Israeli establishment usually finds suitable jobs for retired generals, he was offered none. Gonen believed Dayan
Moshe Dayan, was an Israeli military leader and politician. The fourth Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces , he became a fighting symbol to the world of the new State of Israel...
to be responsible for his disgrace and would tell reporters that he had considered walking into Dayan's office and shooting him.
- Instead, he spent thirteen years in the jungles of the Central African Republic
The Central African Republic , is a landlocked country in Central Africa...
searching for diamonds with the intention, he said, of becoming wealthy enough to hire the best lawyers in Israel to prove the Agranat findings mistaken and clear his name. He reportedly made and lost one or two fortunes but rejected appeals by his family and friends to abandon his obsession. A reporter who visited him in the jungle after nine years found him somewhat mellowed, self-aware, and not without sardonic humor, and still sprinkling his conversation with apt quotes from the TalmudThe Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
. The tough soldier appeared to find satisfaction in coping with the brutal challenges of the jungle rather than nursing his grievances in the cafes of Tel AvivTel Aviv-Yafo , usually called Tel Aviv, is the second largest city in Israel, with an estimated population of 391,300. The city is situated on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline, with a land area of...
. Some would see it as a form of penancePenance is repentance of sins as well as the proper name of the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox Christian Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation/Confession. It also plays a part in the Lutheran Divine Service...
. He died of a heart attackMyocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, is the interruption of blood supply to part of the heart, causing some heart cells to die...
in 1991 during one of his periodic trips to Europe. Among the few possessions returned to his family were maps of Sinai, on which he had apparently refought the war during his jungle exile, and a copy of KabbalisticKabbalah is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the mystical aspect of Judaism. It is a set of esoteric teachings that is meant to explain the relationship between an infinite, eternal and essentially unknowable Creator with the finite and mortal universe of His creation...
work in which the former yeshivaYeshiva or yeshivah , or metivta or mesivta ) also frequently referred to as a Beth midrash, Talmudical Academy, Rabbinical Academy or Rabbinical School is an institution unique to classical Judaism for study of its traditional, central texts...
student may have sought explanations for the disaster that had overtaken him beyond what the maps could tell. (Rabinovich, The Yom Kippur War, p. 506)
In an interview with the
MaarivMaariv is a Hebrew language daily tabloid published in Israel. It is second in sales after the Yedioth Ahronoth tabloid but third in readership after Israel HaYom as well...
daily newspaper on 7 August 2003, his personal assistant, Amir Porat, revealed that Gonen considered assassinating
Moshe DayanMoshe Dayan, was an Israeli military leader and politician. The fourth Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces , he became a fighting symbol to the world of the new State of Israel...
after the war, and that he lived in fear that he would somehow "disappear". Throughout his entire military career, he was considered to be a strict disciplinarian, a political right-winger, and even a militarist.
His tragic life story was the subject of a play,
Gorodish, by Israeli author Hillel Mittelpunkt.