On Wednesday morning we lost a prince. He passed away in the same way he had lived for 69 years: as the embodiment of human dignity. His character can be described as platinum wrapped in velvet. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, the IDF's 15th chief of staff, parted with those close to him in inimitable fashion: from full consciousness to death, without any disorientation in between. He was not a combative man, but his life unfolded as a single war on multiple fronts: national defense, his struggle to live normally in spite of his illness (which went into long periods of remission but never fully receded) and politics. In more innocent times, he would have been described as the hero of the Battles of Karameh and the Lebanon coast. In a rare emotional outburst, outgoing Defense Minister Ehud Barak once said to me, "I love Amnon." Barak described how during one particular operation, he would not have had the mental fortitude to return safely to base had it not been for the cool-headedness displayed by Lipkin-Shahak. Cool-headedness that seems to be the central thread of his biography. Over many years he heard bad news about his medical condition, but no one ever saw him break a sweat. He suffered immensely, but in an aristocratic fashion. He was a nobleman the scion of an old Hebron family and as such, he never let strangers glimpse what he was going through. Top defense brass, including bitter rivals like Barak, Gabi Ashkenazi and Uri Sagi, came to his home seeking advice, and never once heard him groan in pain. Once, during a board meeting, he abruptly stood up and walked to another room. Those who followed him saw his body contort with pain and even heard him cry out. But afterward he returned to the meeting as if he had merely stepped out to speak on his cellphone. During the 1990s, Lipkin-Shahak was diagnosed with leukemia. He and his wife Tali together learned everything they could about the disease. "Amnon asked our opinion," his doctor, Shlomo Segev, told me, "but he made his own decisions as to how to treat the disease." Prior to his appointment as chief of staff, Lipkin-Shahak told then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that he had recently recovered from leukemia. Doctors and experts promised that the disease's progress had been halted, and that he was fit for the job. Should he lose his faculties, it would happen gradually, leaving ample time for him to prepare his successor in an orderly way. Lipkin-Shahak was nothing if not orderly. He never panicked. He was the man to whom everyone came for advice. Then there was the reporter who tried to steal his medical file from Sheba Medical Center. I was shocked and told Lipkin-Shahak about it. He remained unruffled. Several days later he told reporter Ron Ben-Yishai exactly what was ailing him. He had nothing to hide. There was no fear of his secret being exposed. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak stared reality squarely in the face, with the sobriety and courage of a defense veteran who always sought peace. That doesn't mean he shied away from confrontation. Far be it from him to buy inner peace at the expense of resoluteness. Among those with whom he clashed were Benjamin Netanyahu, Yitzhak Mordechai and Uri Sagi. In 1999, he did not take up Barak's offer to run together in elections, despite Barak's hinting that if he won Lipkin-Shahak would be made defense minister. In that instance, Lipkin-Shahak's advisers failed him. He made a mistake. One can assume that both Barak and Lipkin-Shahak later regretted it. For many of the defense establishment's best and brightest, the person they lost on Wednesday was their tribal elder, a source of authority and sage advice. And they are not the only ones.
