李光耀: To disguise their presence, we called them "Mexicans."
Leah Falk: Shortly after Singapore declared independence in 1965, the newly created sovereign city-state waited for military assistance from Egypt and India, but got no reply. It was then that Israel’s ambassador to Thailand and Mossad officer Hezi Carmel agreed to help.
יצחק רבין: Dear friends, I want you to remember several things: 1. We are not going to turn Singapore into an Israeli colony. 2. You are not going there, in order to command them, but to advise them, and 3. You are not arms merchants.
THE JERUSALEM POST: Singapore police arrest teen for anti-Christian online comments
Amnon Barzilai: Christmas Eve, 1965, is the unofficial date of the start of the great and continuing love story between Israel and Singapore, a love affair that was kept a deep, dark secret. Occasionally, scraps of information leaked out; some were published, some were denied, many were disregarded. The Israelis, as usual, wanted to rush to tell all their friends, but managed to overcome that desire. The fear that the thies would be terminated if they became public knowledge had its effect. Israel imposed a total blackout on the story and the secret was preserved.
רְאוּבֵן רִיבְלִין: I am travelling with a sense of respect for the Great People of Singapore
李光耀: I want you to recruit the most primitive people, in the country: the uneducated and the jobless. In the Second World War, I saw the Japanese and the British. All the British soldiers were intelligent and educated, but, as soldiers, they were worthless. The most primitive Japanese soldier gets an order, executes it, and they were extraordinary soldiers. The fact is that the Japanese army defeated the British army.
吴庆瑞: Do what Colonel Golan tells you to do otherwise you will do Double.
גּולן: Yaakov and I tried to explain to him that it’s not a question of education, but of motivation. The Japanese soldier was motivated because he was fighting for his emperor, who, for him, was God. For him, he was ready to sacrifice his life. What motivation did the British soldier have, who fought thousands of kilometers from his home?
גּולן: I knew nothing about jungles. Three months later, two officers returned with the knowledge they acquired in Malaysia and we decided to conduct a course in jungle combat. Out of curiosity, I decided to join. It looked very bad: it was clear that they had taught them British methods from the Second World War period. I decided to take a group of 10 officers. We entered the jungle and started to engage in war games. We trained in navigation, deploying forces, search, and assault. We went through the training manuals, on combat, in Vietnam. We developed methods of night navigation. We learned how to function with a fighting company, in the dense undergrowth. After a few weeks of training, I wrote the training manual of the Singapore Armed Forces for jungle combat.
Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III
צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל: wake-up at 5:30 A.M., calisthenics, personal arrangements, parade. Training from 7:30 A.M.-1 A.M.
Retired Colonel Asher Dar: The second team that arrived in Singapore applied what Yehuda Golan did, in the form of combat doctrine. When the head of the training department, Yitzhak Hofi, visited Singapore, we carried out a model landing of an infantry brigade that set sail, in boats, at night, at a distance of 12 kilometers with the aid of shore navigation, only.
