Dr. Zvi Sela, a former brigadier-general in the Israel Police who is now a psychological adviser, cracks a smile. "In a line of work like mine, the smile is all that is left," says the 70-year-old Sela. "I'm already heading down the final stretch. At the end of the day, human beings learn that they need to let go and forswear responsibility, even when it comes to their own children." From the mid-1970s to the end of the 1990s, Sela held numerous posts in the Israel Police -- from head of the Intelligence and Detective Branch in the Sharon District, to head of the Intelligence Gathering Staff in the national headquarters, to commander of the Intelligence Officers Course, to special assistant to then- Police Minister Moshe Shahal, to commander of the Hadera police force. Still, he admits that his outlet, his "ventilation," is writing his book. "It has always been that way," he says. His fourth book, "Bnei Aruba" ("Hostages"), was published recently after a lengthy dispute with army censors and certain politicians. "If I hadn't hired a really good editor, this book wouldn't have seen the light of day, simply because a few people who don't really understand books decided that this is the way it was going to be," he said. While Sela makes every effort to cover his biographical tracks in the books, an astute reader can quickly decipher the characters he writes about. He details his meetings with Ahmed Yassin, the Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar, and prisoners from the maximum security wing (so-called "Prisoners X") who have been talked about in the headlines in the past year following the suicide of Ben Zygier. This was Sela's previous life, which he modestly calls "interesting." Now he is focusing his efforts on growing olives in Beitan Aharon, the moshav where he lives with his wife, Haifa District Court Judge Diana Sela. He is also devoting time to working with youth, where it all started for him. 'Yassin recognized Israel' In his final post with the police, Sela served as the head intelligence officer for the Israel Prison Service from 1995 to 1998. His job was to gather incriminating information from within the prison walls. Sela was the only Israeli who for three straight years met constantly with the founder and leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. The two would meet once a week for two hours at a time. Sela describes a compelling conversationalist who requested that the writings of David Ben-Gurion be translated into Arabic and who managed a well-oiled organization from inside his jail cell, whose influence was entirely thanks to "our good teachers, the Israelis," according to Yassin. Sela's description of Yassin, which is entirely devoid of sentiment, picks apart the demonized image of a man that has crystallized in Israeli society. While he agrees that Yassin was a cruel terrorist who hated Jews and devoted his life to fighting Israel, he also notes that after so many conversations with the man, "you manage to understand the similarity between us, and I don't want to hear anybody accuse me of being a leftist." "After having given hours of lectures to every major intelligence agency in the world and talking with people from the Mossad and the Israel Security Agency [Shin Bet], secret agencies and defense apparatuses, I can say that Yassin -- and all of the Palestinians in general -- are people who understand us the best," he said. "Peace is made with enemies, as is war, ostensibly, and so we are learning each other so well to the point where at the end of the day we essentially turn into very similar people." Sela recalls his sit-downs with Yassin during a time when Israel suffered the worst of Palestinian terrorist attacks. "He would always say that he didn't want to get into an argument with me, because at the end of the day we would discover that we killed more innocents," he said. "His claim was that neither us nor them want peace, because if we wanted peace, we wouldn't do business with Arafat, who, according to him, was a corrupt man with fat pockets." Sela said that he and Yassin were not friends. "But when you spend so much time with somebody, you realize that he's a human being like you and me," he said. "He wanted to see his grandchildren. He would always imagine what they smelled like, and he would always be reminded of childhood stories. This man recognized the State of Israel, because despite the fact that he was a terrorist, he was a man of realpolitik who understood that we were in the midst of a cruel conflict that claimed many victims and would continue to claim many victims. But both sides are so thirsty for revenge that nobody bothers to listen to what's important." Is Sela glorifying an arch-terrorist? "What does it matter if I am-" he asked rhetorically. "It's not as if people listen to me anyway, and they probably won't listen to me in the future." To Sela's credit, the statements he is making now, when he is no longer officially part of any organization, were first said during his time in active service. This may have hurt him. Perhaps it led to a situation in which the system did not really know how to accept him, but the soul-searching he did is nothing like that done by the former heads of the Shin Bet, who all appear in a film entitled "The Gatekeepers." Sela worked with each of these men. "I don't want to hear about them," he said. "I left that movie in the middle because I just couldn't bear to hear them anymore. Ami [Ayalon] has been my friend since I was 18 years old, but like all short people, he had his various psychological hang-ups that led him to one day be in a position of leadership. I look at these people and say to myself: 'You can say whatever you want, but at the end of the day you are measured by your actions over the years, and not by your statements.' It's like when you send an agent out into the field and at the end of the day he loses his identity. That is how it is for those who are inside the organization for so many years. "When [former Shin Bet chief Yuval] Diskin is painted as a leftist, you ask yourself if there isn't any political motive at play here because these guys were engaged in espionage their whole lives. They put on costumes, made up stories, and took on new identities. Your work in the Shin Bet goes with you your entire life. It doesn't leave you suddenly. So that's why there are doubts raised whenever I hear them speak differently." In his book, Sela notes that the State of Israel has always taken a militant approach when negotiating with terrorists -- from the Maalot tragedy to the Munich Olympics to the murder of the Haran family in Nahariya. On more than one occasion, he met with Samir Kuntar during his stint in prison. Like Yassin, Sela discovered a smart man who was well-versed in all things related to Israel as well as the Israeli character. "Kuntar was 17 years old when he committed the attack in Nahariya," Sela said. "He received explicit instructions to take hostages because he understood that the Israelis stop at nothing. He told me: 'We saw in Maalot that for the Israelis, it doesn't matter whether there are infants involved or not, but they will sacrifice whatever necessary so that no hostages are taken. So it was clear to us that we needed to take them beyond Israel's borders.'" Kuntar was freed as part of the swap with Hezbollah. Israel received the bodies of soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. At the time, Sela supported the Schalit swap. His position has not changed to this day. "You have to tip your cap to [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and [then-Defense Minister] Ehud Barak who made the decision and secured Gilad Schalit's freedom," he said. "The question that needs to be asked is why it took five years and four months. You have to remember a fundamental fact -- there are currently 6,000 terrorists incarcerated in Israeli prisons. No other country in the world is keeping that many terrorists in custody. The elite of these terrorists are in Israeli prisons. Now, let's assume that we free 100 of them. Are these the ones that will return to terrorism? The statistics say no. "The Middle East, Israel included, is filled with al-Qaida people. The number of terrorists is simply astronomical. So the 100 that you free in exchange for an Israeli are the ones that will change the face of terrorism in the Middle East and Israel? I can tell you that this is simply not the case. What we have here is a visceral, human desire for revenge, a reflex. A family that lost its most cherished thing has nothing left except for revenge, so the release of terrorists clashes with this very understandable need that any individual could understand and empathize with. "Still, when a state chooses to act out of vengeance, we are in deep trouble, and this has an impact on each and every one of us." Vengeance is a theme Sela revisits over and over again. He has often met with high-priority security prisoners in Israel. The Ben Zygier case did not surprise him, because ultimately "you don't have much other choice when incarcerated in those conditions." "You either commit suicide or you lose your sanity," he said. "I think that this is where vengeance comes into play in any organization. It was along the lines of, 'We invested in you, we gave to you, and you pay us back by being ungrateful and by betraying us.'" What kind of revenge are you talking about- "Without going into too many details, at the end of the day, treason against your country isn't done for money or for women. These are excuses that we and the spies that are captured tell ourselves. It's all personal, after all. This guy wasn't promoted, the other felt that he was disrespected, and he decided to take action and to take revenge on those who didn't appreciate him enough. But the price that is paid for this action is, in my mind, disproportionate. "The people in the high-security wing of these prisons lost their humanity, and I'm not sure that this is the outcome that what we as a country wish to attain. But, here, once again, the issue of vengeance rears its head. The desire for vengeance is a very human emotion, certainly in an organization like the Mossad or the Shin Bet, which cannot even fathom an act like treason." The trenched wrinkles on his face give away his seniority. He raised five boys, all of whom went off to serve in combat units. He has had many encounters with the enemy, as well as with Mossad and Shin Bet operatives who visit him in his clinic to spill their guts. "I see the wear and tear on them and on the police officers, and I ask myself and them as well why we are in this situation," he said. "When I was a police officer in the 1970s, there were 20,000 police on the force. Today, we have the same number. That's a sign that something here isn't right. You should also add to this the work done by Shin Bet and Mossad people, which is not at all easy and which certainly leaves psychological scars. Whoever says they haven't been left scarred is lying to you." Now he works with youth on a volunteer basis. For Sela, this is coming full circle. That was how he began, and this is where he has returned. "You don't need to be a renowned psychologist in order to understand this," he says. "I was a terrible student who didn't finish high school. They treated me like an idiot, and this, of course, spurred me to return to that same class, this time as a teacher." Despite everything he has seen over the years, Sela is optimistic. "We have great kids and a great generation," he says. "In my opinion, despite the dramatic headlines in the newspapers, the violence here is not on the rise. I work with problematic children, and I see that the only thing missing in their lives is a father figure or an influential figure that knows how to set limits for them, represent the law, and give these children the sense that they have someone they can trust in this world. "These kids are not bad kids, and this generation is open to the world and wants to move forward on the social ladder much more than we did. I believe that the system simply needs to understand this and to know how to meet the needs of these children. Otherwise, this could lead to a huge chasm in Israeli society. This is assuming, of course, that a serious change doesn't take place."
