Transcripts For CSPAN2 Dennis Ross David Makovsky Be Strong

Transcripts For CSPAN2 Dennis Ross David Makovsky Be Strong And Of Good Courage 20240713

Good afternoon. Welcome to the washington institute. Im delighted to welcome you all to the postlabor day gathering, a celebration, celebration of the publication of this this timely, important new book by my colleagues. When youre a leader and you get your face chiseled into Mount Rushmore or your picture on a coin, its not because you did nothing during your time in office. Its not because you waited out the term. Its because you took Big Decisions that affected the fate of your nation, often at moments of great crisis. Often decisions that were unpopular or that risked that this would be your last term in office. But decisions that reflected your vision about the direction of your nation and your people. And if you made it to rushmore or if you made it on a coin, its because decades later your people looked back and said, thank you for having the boldness, for having the courage to take those decisions. Israel today is remarkably a strong, selfconfident country for many reasons far too complicated to go into all of them in just this event. But one of the most Important Reasons is that it was blessed with rushmorelike leadership at critical moments from the founding of the state all the way over the past 70 years. And those moments that demand rushmorelike decisions have not gone away. And that, in a nutshell, is what this book is all about. Its to tell the story of those leaders who rose to the occasion, who met history head on. Can and to remind us and to remind us that those moments, the moments are in the lives of all nations, but those moments in the life of the state of israel are still with us x. It is to hope that rushmorelike leadership will rise to the occasion again to help the people of israel deal with those questions. And just doing that is such an enormous service as we are all busy on our iphones tracking the ups and downs of the latest, you know, headlines in this yet another Election Campaign of 2019 in israel. To remind us about the really big picture. And for that, i want to thank you, dennis and david, for doing that enormous service from thousands of miles away to remind us about the big picture and the fundamental role of leadership. It applies here, it applies in countries around the world, and it is certainly applies in israel. So with that, i want to do this plug in front of our global, livestreamed audience for be strong and of good courage how israels most important leaders shaped its destiny and what the challenges remain for israels next set of rushmorelike leaders. So with that, i want to congratulate both of you. We have a very special program here today. In addition to having dennis and david talk about their fantastic new book, we have through the wonders of technology dahlia rabin and gilad sharon joining us. After david speaks, dalia joining us. Served as Deputy Defense minister, then after dalias pretaped presentation i have to point out, we have gilad sharon live. Gilad is Ariel Sharons son, the author of the best selling biography of his father titled sharon the life of a leader. He manages the family farm, has done so for 30 years. Till still a major reserve duty in an elite army unit. So were going to go from david to dalia to gilad. Theyll offer their view and perspective on their respective fathers, and then to bat cleanup, i will turn to dennis to close our opening presentations. And then after a couple of questions, ill turn the floor over to your questions for our panelists. So first, im very pleased to bring to the podium my longtime colleague, david makovsky, ziegler distinguished fellow, director of our project on arabisrael relations. He has had careers in journalism, in scholarship and in government in the second obama administration. He served as Senior Adviser to the state departments special envoy to israelipal palestinian negotiations. Congratulations, david, for this fantastic achievement. [applause] thank you very much, rob. If you can all hear me in the back okay, first, i want to thank rob, the institute, the board of directors, patrick, all the senior staff who really helped facilitate this. And theres a whole bunch of Research Assistants and interns gathered around. I cant name them all here, but i want to thank them for all their support and making this responsible. Is thank you, rob are. Thank you very much. Now, why did we write this book . As rob noted, israels also facing a very fateful choice. And so we thought lets trace the dealings of these people who met the bar of history. I like robs metaphor about the rushmorelike decisions. Doesnt mean they were perfect people, doesnt mean that every decision we agree with, of course. But theyve left legacies of achievement that do endure. So how did they make their decisions, and what is the political courage they had to confront even longterm allies in making those momentous decisions. I will focus on bengurion and begin, we have dalias tape about her dad. Sharon about his dad, and then dennis will summarize. As we divided this book up, i focused on those two figures, so im sure dennis is going to have a lot to say about everything, including those two chapters. What are the lessons, what made these people great. And so each one of these things we could talk forever about. Im trying to be as telegraphic as i can just for purposes of time. Bengurion, i think, was great because he focused on what was truly important. He had a Central Mission in life which was end jewish homelessness after 2,000 years. Not an easy thing that he took on. He was unswerving in his objective and tactically agile in his ability to achieve the objective. He had wedded his zionism to britain until 1939 with the white paper and really phased out british immigration. He said were going to start all over again, he lived for ten weeks here at the Hamilton Hotel on k street. He just, this is the goal, i thought this was the way to achieve it. Now weve got to change. He believed that you needed institutions. You needed a mindset. You want to link the people with the land. And what i said about immigration, that for him was the oxygen of zionism, was unrelenting focus. Anyone who wanted to compromise on that issue, for him, that was the rubicon, that was the red line he would not cross. Thats why he breaks from britain in 1939. Belief his belief was that, you know, to achieve that, immigration was central because zionism, the jews were minority at the time, and they wouldnt be jewish and democratic, they had to have immigration. And he was not willing to compromise on that. He was also big, i think because he understood not just the insideout, but the outsidein, how do these world events impact zionism. He wasnt insular. He was extremely well read, 13 languages. He taught himself greek while in the blitz during world war ii in london, that thats where he got his sense that the public will sacrifice if they have a leader who can communicate to the public the way churchill did. He was prescient in this regard. It doesnt mean he succeeded. In many ways, you know, he would admit if he was here that i think he was a failure in the 30s because he saw this as a race, zionism on one hand and, you know, that hitler was going to take over europe. He predicted in 33 after he got ahold of mein kampf in a munich train station, he said theres going to be a world war here in a few years. The ground is burning. That was central to him. And he always said i have no right to compromise on immigration because all these people are going to be killed in a few years. He didnt because of the enormity, he had no sense of gas claimers or anything, of course chambers, and certainly he failed because in the 30s whatever they could bring, it was not six million did perish. But he understood that world events were greater than anything else and that, i think, was very important. He also was ahead of the curve in saying, you know, whats the next challenge. Not just the moment. The arab states are going to go to war, and he got in a huge fight with the main defense institutions of the prestate. He said you guys are thinking small. Theres going to be a war with countries. Not behind rocks. I want to know who is in an air force. He ended up restructuring the whole army, and he favored people who were in world war ii in the british army because he said they have experience in big formations. He got into a huge fight internally over this. Always trying to think whats the next big thing. By the way, he said to de gaulle in 1960, he said soviet union will collapse in 30 years, and it was 31 years. He was right. Doesnt mean he was always right, but he always looked outsidein. He was not afraid of taking a momentous decision even when they incurred risk, but once he locked in country first, you know, you could not move him. He was a rock. Just a few of his decisions, i cant take the time to get into it because this chapters about his road to 48 and his road to decision to establish a state. But bringing in 835,000 jews from arab states. We think over three million americans to put this in american terms today. He accepted german reparations, and people said youre dealing with the devil, including begin, which well get to. And then there was the whole idea of declaring the state itself, against all odds. And the biggest day of his career was that two days before the state, when he gets all the bad news coming back from George Marshall and saying, you know, i won world war ii, you know, you didnt, and your generals are intoxicated, i feel, because theyve opened the siege to jerusalem, doesnt mean youre going to win the world. And he tried to argue can cha relate not to declare the state, and he said at least agree to a three month extension. Charet and marshall did not agree on a fundamental point, lets have an international trusteeship. But on the idea of a three month truce, he was there. But at that meeting, golda meir comes back and says, yes, i told you we would during the war, but i cant keep my promise. Im not an independent actor, theres a coalition of five arab countries. He gets the word of a massacre at an israeli settlement which is actually the west bank but was there before 48. And then the biggest thing and each would have been these things, we just dont have time, but was that his own generals are saying, maybe its not such a bad idea to wait for three months, you know . 40 of our people, they dont even have pistols in the army. I mean, its hard to believe. I mean, rob talked about israel strong and selfconfident, which is all true. Its hard to believe 40 didnt even have pistol. I said to the former idf chief of staff just recently, you know, its amazing how far israels come from that moment. But this was classic men gur on. Bengurion. It was always ill take the information, but ill filter it through an analytical lens. And his sense was, look, this ceasefire is not going to be applied evenly. As u. N. Or whoever, theyre going to go and monitor the ceasefire in jordan, iraq and egypt . No, he said, they wont. Our biggest resources are abroad. Our weapons, our money, our people, our supporters, the potential immigrants weve been fighting to open these gates. Now we have our moment, our justification. What justification would we have if we did declare the state when the british are leaving in two days . Its now or never. So having a sense of timing, i think, was critical. So bengurion was detached, but he was always pushing for decision, and he was unambiguous. But, you know, its not that he ignored others at all. He took it all in, but he had an Analytical Framework based on his unswerving goal. Know gun, what was now begin, what was his greatness . If men bengurion wanted to end jewish homelessness, for begin, it was jewish victimhood. And he also had a sense that there has to be an equilibrium between values and interest. He really believed that zionism had to be, you know, consistent with civil liberties. He believed that there was martial law in the arab communities. Thats wrong. He said if theyre citizens, there cant be martial law in this country. And begin, i know this is going to surprise 95 of people here, but you read in the cabinet debate we have i went through hundreds and hundreds of pages in hebrew of the cabinet transcript after the 67 war. And the one guy who wanted to give the arabs the palestinian withs they didnt call them palestinians, they called them the arabs of the land of israel, he said we have to give them the vote. That was begin. It wasnt people to his left or right, people thought he was crazy. But his framework was the 19th century european liberal, the germans, the french, you know, citizenship, maybe we could wait for seven years. That was 1967, begin said that. And he repeated it. He had a very brief period of a honeymoon with jimmy carter, and carter did sense that with him in december of 77. So begin had that. Begin, another thing that he had, i think, was a sense that the justice of a cause needed to be subordinate to national unity. There were two key, form ty moments for begin formative. 44, 48. Hunting the people because of things that were done to the british, and some of the good people said to given, lets start killing and he held up a piece of paper, and he said you can have a just cause, but its a thin line as this piece of paper between a just cause and a contaminated one. And you all know the story of the ship with the9 weapons coming in. Again, we dont have time to get into details, but people wanted to take revenge. Here was bengurion said weve got to sink the ship because you cant be sovereign unless youre a monopoly and the use of force. But begin was the National Principle too lets go after bengurion, lets go back to underground, lets start killing someone else, these people, and begin said, no, were not going to fight fellow jews. And i think that really defined him. He had a moment, i think, during the german reparations debate where he veered from the statement, but he was very proud that whatever the justness of his cause, that these ideological attachments did not overwhelm his sense of broader commitment to the country first. Then, so and then the only other last point i would say about begin is that i think the biographers of the carter period in the 80s wrote their, you know, wrote their memoirs fist. They saw begin as very narrowly defined. He got peace with egypt, but he didnt give enough on the palestinian issue. And i totally understand their point of view. But what they didnt see in the 80s was that in 1993 was that every israel leader would be quoting begin for accepting the legitimate rights of the palestinians and the authority. They all quote given. So in the 80s, you couldnt have seen the 90, but begins move on autonomy and accepting the legitimate rights of the palestinians, certainly we could say it didnt go far enough in terms of 2019, but by setting the template, everyone internally could use begin for political cover to go forward with the palestinians. And the last point was just the sense of, you know, the sense of weighing the risks of action versus the risk of inaction. What i said about bengurion, that for him the risk of inaction was missing the moment. He felt he couldnt miss that moment. The risks were too great. And i think for begin too, the risk of inaction not giving up the sinai. His war there could have been another war with egypt. The risks of inaction were greater. And it caused clashes against him by comrades, there were demonstrations against him, everyone having umbrellas from chamberlain, but he was attacked that he betrayed a cause. But he felt when all this subsides, the achievement of peace endure. And that, i think, is the point that we forget, is that a peace has endured. Its not, you know, the warm peace, but the point is look what its survived. It survived the assassination of anwar sadat, it survived two intifadas, the Muslim Brotherhood in government in egypt, and no one has been killed in those 40 years that we just celebrated earlier this year, on march 26th of the peace tremendousty of 1979 treaty of 1979, now 40 years later. And, of course, anwar sadat deserves a lot of credit. I hope we do another book on heroic arab leaders whether it is saw dad, hussein, a guy like fayad or other key arabs who have made key decisions. But i think the fact that the peace endures, people forget what does that mean . Senate 970s in the 1970s, 30 of israels gdp went to the military. Today its about 5 . My calculation is its like 130 billion difference per year because of peace that israel can put into roads, schools and clinics. So these people have long foresight, and so but its this distillation of all these at transcribes. Id attributes. Id go over them again, but for the purposes of time the, i wont. But i hope i conveyed the sense that these leaders had a sense of foresight saying what is the legacy. Dont always do i think i was rereading john f. Kennedys profiles in courage, and we like to see this about a book about israels profile in courage. And kennedy quotes watter litman and says the role of leaders is not to do whats popular, its to do whats right. And we hope this book conveys the sense that here were leaders that had that sense of political courage and did whats right. Because even if they had some unpopularity at the time, their legacies and their achievements endured. Thank you all very much. [applause] thank you, david. And now well turn the house lights down, and we will turn to dalia rabin. First of all, i would like to congratulate dennis and david for the publication of the new book. I was very, very content to see the choice of the leaders that you chose to write about. Not that i was disagreeing with the choice, but i was very pleased to understand that my father is included among the first, the four leaders that you chose to write about. My fathers leadership was, to my opinion, quite unique. He was different. He came from background of very active parents in the labour party. He was raised on the values of labor and democracy, very rigid e and strict. He graduated from an Agriculture High school and spent most of his adult life in the army. I think the most significant part of his life that shaped the life was the war of independence. The way that we entered this war with so little ammunition, so little trained and so little plans for the war found him afterwards doing a lot of rethinking and making the conclusion that hes going to devote his life to build a very strong army, a very, very Strong Defense world. The whole parts of the defense of israel, and he did. The peak of his life was the sickday war, no doubt sixday war, no doubt. But i wont go into this because youll find it in the book. I just want to say that the symbol, the most important part of his leadership were, first of all, he was very, very modest. Actually, most of the first leaders of israel were veried modest in their private lives. But he wa

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