Interviews:
*Former Shin Bet agent who recruited the son of a Hamas leader: "The country is losing itself"
Gonen Ben-Yitzhak conducts a soul-searching account of the greatest failure that has plagued him to this day, Israel's betrayal of (Mosab) Hassan Yousef, [the son of a Hamas leader who worked as a spy for Israel - OH] and explains how this relates to his joining the protests against Israel’s attorney general. (Interviewed by Tomer Keren in Maariv, pp.16-17)
…According to Ben-Yitzhak, the Green Prince should receive the Israel Prize for Security. Ben-Yitzhak's deep friendship with Hassan Yousef, the Green Prince, which took place under the Shin Bet radar until about a year before the publication of Yousef’s book, caused him many problems:
"The Shin Bet did not like me saying that for what the Prince did he should receive the Israel Security Prize, that people who did less than him got the prize. For that they wanted to put me on trial, but I didn’t care, I could not be silent about the injustice done to him because he really did very big things for us. There’s no doubt they made a mistake here, and it is still not too late to give this man the treatment he deserves for saving the lives of thousands of Israelis.”
Are preventative assassinations an effective tool in the war on terror?
"Sometimes, yes. Take Bin Laden, for example. If they killed him a week before 9/11, they would have saved the lives of 3,000 Americans. But there is a long path between that and assuming that wholesale assassinations of terrorists will bring about the elimination of terrorism, because there is always a replacement. In the Shin Bet security service, there was a joke that they wrote in the newspaper that the village leader was assassinated, and only a week later did they really liquidate the village leader. That is why Israel is in no rush to liquidate terrorists. I did (assassination - OH) missions, and they did not contradict who I was and my scale of values.”
Is the (Green) Prince a hero or a traitor?
"If I were a Palestinian, I would think he was a traitor. There are those who say that I treat him like a hero, but that he’s just a shitty person who betrays his people. They may be right. But he saved innocent lives on both sides. We must not forget that.”
From your experience with the Palestinians, do they want peace?
"Over the years, I have been impressed that there are people who want peace, but I don’t believe there will be peace. We need to talk about an arrangement. It’s more effective to create a safe reality for Israel. I don’t think that Hamas is an existential threat to Israel. Therefore, peace with the Arab states and the Palestinians will ensure that we have stability and fewer threats. I am cutting this off from the question of the [Palestinian] Territories, which must be democratically decided by the [Jewish- OH] nation.”
Do politics talk to you?
“I’m not thinking about it right now. I am involved as a social justice activist in  'Israel is Dear to Us' and in demonstrations against corruption and against the gas pipeline, I demonstrate with Eldad Yaniv at Habima every Saturday night."
What do you think about the split between (protest leaderes Elad Yaniv) and Meni Naftali?
“I think the split is understandable. When it comes to people, there is anger, but that does not mean that it is impossible to work for a common goal in other places. People are demonstrating in Petah Tikva, Tel Aviv and elsewhere, and that’s good. It’s important to emphasize that I’m not a friend of Eldad (Yaniv). I am just a partner to the idea.”
What's the idea?
“Our country is losing itself, and what is happening here does not add to our democracy, but only weakens it."
You mean the (corruption) investigations against Netanyahu?
“The investigations are a small part of what is happening here. Many politicians are being investigated by the police, and that's okay. Maybe it's not okay, but that's the nature of the world. Something else is happening here. Something systematic, and above all, very dangerous, because Attorney General Mendelblit is not making decisions. Every day that passes that he doesn’t make a decision about the investigations seriously harms our democracy.”
Wow, you are laying on his shoulders a heavy load.
“What can you do, it's the truth. He’s the man who has to make the decision and he does not make it, so we're here to remind him of his commitment."
You were among the people who harassed him when he was shopping at the supermarket. Didn’t you get carried away?
“Absolutely not. We got carried away? Why? Because some journalists wrote that we got carried away? I don’t think that way. I think that this is a justified protest and I am happy to be a partner to it. It is a quiet and dignified protest, a protest against the conduct and not against the man.”
So why in the supermarket? Why not at his office?
"There is no other way to conduct a legitimate protest. The fact is that it makes headlines. Look, you asked me about, and if Mendelblit had not called the police, no one would have heard about it, thank you very much."
So I understand you will continue with this line? Even though some think it is illegitimate.
“Absolutely. It’s not legitimate in you opinion? Don’t come. I and many others think that this is legitimate. By the way, the High Court ruled that it’s legitimate.
Sounds like it's really burning in your bones.
“It’s true that it’s burning in my bones to save this country, as it did when I was in the Shin Bet. I have four children and I am afraid of the state they will have. In my view, this is no less important than the question of the Territories or targeted assassinations. It's in our souls. "

Ex-Israeli Air Force Pilot Eyes His Toughest Mission Yet: Saving Both Israeli and Diaspora Jews
Tal Keinan wasn’t scared, even though he knew each time he took off that he might not return alive. Now, however, he fears for the future of Israel and the Jewish people – no less. But he thinks he might have the solution. (Interviewed by David B. Green in Haaretz+)

The ‘Oslo Diaries’ creators explain why they haven’t lost hope for peace
Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan discuss how the filming process altered their extreme leftist positions and why, despite failure, we should continue along the path of Rabin and Arafat. (Interviewed by Nirit Anderman in Haaretz+)

**(Brig. Gen. Avigdor) Kahalani in a meeting with his subordinates from the Yom Kippur War: "There will be an explosion in Israeli society"
Forty-five years after he led the 77th Battalion in the Yom Kippur War and the moment after he published a new book on leadership, we met Brig.-Gen. (res.) Avigdor Kahalani with his colleagues from the war to discuss the integration of women in the army, his talks with leaders and the future of the state. (Interviewed by Eyal Levy in Maariv)
Does the army prepare people to become leaders in civilian life?
“It prepares for decision-making on the highest level in the world. But let's take Benny Gantz, (for example,) who is supposed to join the political establishment. Once he joins, half the people will hate him. As much as I was loved, as soon as I joined, I was marked. It's hard for a military man to digest that. He wants to remain the soldier who guards the country and helps everyone. These are some of the hesitations. He does not want to deal with the 26-year-old woman who sits next to him. I once heard a young female Knesset member tell Arik Sharon: 'Who are you to tell me what to do?' I was disgusted. Someone else could turn a table over and say, ‘Get out of my sight'. Military personnel have to lower themselves to the lowest level and understand that from now on they have to fill up the gas in a car, and they will not have a driver outside the door with a vehicle driven.”
Have you changed your political views over the years?
"There is no one who does not change them. I sat with Arafat at the time, and Abu Mazen was in my home. I try not to be naïve in the solution to which we aspire, nor do I apologize for wanting to guard our existence. I do not think we have to manage the lives of the Arabs, I want them to live and not to disturb me. I am for two states, but with borders and security. I think that if we spoke Arabic with the Arabs, and I mean in the broad and inclusive way, we would probably have reached the golden path. If we let the Arabists (Israeli experts on Arabs) to conduct negotiations, Avi Dichter for example, they would be able to find the language. When I sat down with Arafat and said (in Arabic) about [high-ranking Palestinian leader] Muhammad Dahlan: ‘That man is evil, the son of evil,’ he laughed for half an hour. I touched the point exactly.
By the way, what is your attitude toward the Nation-State law, of which Dichter is one of the proponents?
"This is a correct law that maintains the existence of Israel as a Jewish state and does not harm anyone. You want equality? Get under the gurney."
The Druze are already there.
"I appreciate them, I fought with them, but they have to understand that we are a Jewish state. This law really does not hurt. If it were passed by the Labor Party, everything would have been conducted quietly. "
The nation is divided, torn.
"I think there will be an explosion in Israeli society, I just don’t know when."
Perhaps the problem is that there are no leaders as strong as they used to be, those who don’t zigzag?
"The cemetery is full of people who didn’t have any replacements. There are people who until they sit on the chair you will not know how they will function. It is defeatism to say there is no substitute. They come to me sometimes in the street and tell me that I belong to the generation of giants, and I am one who grew up in Wadi Hanin in Nes Ziona and was supposed to be a locksmith."

Head of IDF ground forces denies claims army is unprepared for war
Maj. Gen. Kobi Barak tells Israel Hayom that outgoing IDF Ombudsman Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Brik's report that ground forces are unprepared for war, which he based on anonymous interviews with commanders of field units, "borders on irresponsible." (Interviewed by Yoav Limor in Israel Hayom)