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 was more than modest. He was shy. He never ran after honor. He never took credit for things. He never thought about the himself. He was totally devoted to people he worked with, the soldiers he fought with and the needs of the israeli country. And i think that he served as role model for a leader who always took responsibility for whatever the results were. Will be a card to play with and to bring about peace to the region. To go to washington and create the relationship and the deep bond between the United States and israel. The cold war and russia was still supporting especially egypt. We need the other superpower to support us especially because the United States was also the biggest democracy and this was his vision when he went to the ambassador. Its supported by the administration and always said we cannot take any steps forward without the support of the United States. Israel started building its force based on the American Financial support and the arms muscles both submarines so on and so forth. He was seeking peace efforts since and he witnessed the terrible price of the war and thought for the israeli people to have normalized the Global Village they slowly tried to build the infrastructure for making peace in the region. First with egypt and then he was very pleased with the peace. He was pulling the strings trying to convince the israeli government. Then he tried to make a dialogue and thoughts when he came to an agreement with one of them there was a total so after a long ti time, he decided lets bring tunis in here to make the agreement. Unfortunately, the goods were chirping and very slowly and he was assassinated on the background of the terror growing in israel and while the Peace Process grew stronger and stronger. They tried to convince the congress and the senate. I got a very significant support from lots of congressmen and senators to our mission knowing my father and depreciating the contribution to the relationsh relationship. Thank you. [applause] and now turning live. Very happy to be invited to this special event. Its a very young age the mission was guarding the life, protecting israel. This was the essence of the public activity, the purpose of his life. Even as a young officer he changed the problematic relationship in israel and during the war of independence in which he was gravely wounded. There were thousands of terror attacks that started during the early 1950s. Even if they couldnt find a way for the target or if they did find a way they would Just Exchange fire my father was a student released from the army when he was called to establish unit 101. After two months, the Prime Minister wanted to see this officer. The difference betwee between pd and strategic threat is funding the coast from te comes from teo jerusalem to block their own country. So he changed the reality. We do not return until we execute we do not leave our men behind and in a very high level of performing the reaction, by giving it they always push for military actions and they have a wider considerations sometimes they are proven and sometimes they dont, but he gave them the freedom to choose and the military option. Then the situation was completely different. From, he entered [inaudible] the situation back then my father is a Division Commander with a main role in the war [inaudible] from the beginning of the war he managed to change the course of the war and the defeat into a great victory. Before the first lebanon war, he was a minister of defense when it was open and it was removed and after 11 weeks, there were syrian soldiers when my father was elected as the minister, it was in the country and looked desperate. Its not just [inaudible] contain most of the terror attacks itself but when he led operation defensive shield, he managed to change completely the situation. How is it that he became a soldier, commander of general in 1947 the Un General Assembly voted in favor of the resoluti resolution. She was accepted and went dancing in the streets because that was the state of a thousand tears. Shall we accept it or reject it. The next day they gave their usual answer. If they would accept it, they would have it and more. But they didnt even consider it. Why did lebanon, syria, jordan, egypt, saudi arabia, why did they invite israel in the beginning. Between the war of independence and the sixday war there were the attacks on the israelis they didnt even think about it because the source of the violence is not the outcome of the sixday war. The source for all this evil. No matter what the borders, and all the rest is just stuck. This is the reason we are not on the maps in schools, in our country, not egypt, jordan, not talk about the palestinians. We were not there on the maps in the previous quarter or the 67 borders or even in the. When the educated, we have the right and then maybe we will have a possibility to talk about this. From that perspective, nothing to. In iraq, yemen, just imagine what they would have done to us. My father knew that very well. He knew our neighbors, very good. So he had no illusions and that was the reason that in any future arrangement, if there ever will be one, he will never lose the ability to defend ourselves. Our security will never be outsourced which was the biggest in the state. Over the years and all the roles he played, whenever he saw a problematic reality and it changed the realities. He made the impossible possible. [applause] thank you for creating a kind of climate that makes it possible for us to do these kind of. I could easily go through the history and biography of all four of them. To talk more about the truth is im very tempted to talk about anecdotes of each and maybe you will ask me more questions about that. But the institute for the near east policy, so what i want to do is focus a little bit more on that sort of lessons that you might dispel from the past in terms of leadership and then apply it to a the issue that is facing israel today, not necessarily the Election Night will come back to put the issue that we will be facing in the leadership one thing that typifies even though they disagreed ideologically they are not the same ideologically. In some ways it an accident that to represent the code and to represent labor. They are not the same ideologically but the way they define the role of being the leader and Prime Minister all for woulfour would have accepte. They operate on the premise and bore the responsibility of making decisions. They were not supposed to be deterred. They went to be put off by their successors and they would look ahead and say what are the stakes that we are dealing with and what are the priorities that we have to pursue even if the decisions we have to take our going to be costly politically it is on our shoulders to take them. For them, i will see it slightly differently, all of them understood the cost of action. There was never an issue. What was clear is they understood that the cost of inaction and they knew to make the decision was to shirk their responsibility. It was on their shoulders. What he meant by that is when you base these decisions you face them alone one wonders when the decision was made and the planes were in the air, he wrote two different letters. One was a letter to explain what happened and the other was to submit his resignation in the event that it went through very badly and i was in, he was our negotiator in 1994. Heavily involved in trying to get the palestinians to give us any information they knew and it turned out that they were not behind it. The israelis found where they were being held. They conducted an operation and he was killed. Being in response to the first, and sharon when it comes to making the decision on gaza they are heavily influenced by the institution and how they defined the leadership, how they defined responsibility. He got a scholarship to go study Water Engineering at uc berkel berkeley. But he stayed afterwards because it is interesting. The commander units feel too little attention is devoted and he feels they did what was necessary to prepare. They have the capacity to look ahead. They are not afraid to make decisions. The occupation for ensuring that israel would be a Jewish Democratic state. They can use the same terminology that. They will have full equal rights. They will be permitted to vote. If they stay on the path its on it for the one state for two people. This is not an issue there are some people who will write about it but its not at the forefront of the debate. We see them trying very hard to create precision guidance and we know that israel is small with a limited number of highvalue targets both strategic and economic and they have precision capabilities first of all overwhelm any defense that you may have. But the price of offensive missiles is one tenth the cost of defensive end there could be a saturation. Its to focus on those threats and when we talk about one state for two people, that is real in terms of affecting their identity over time there is a second reason. First those that simply deny that there is a demographic problem and when you read the last chapter there is a whole discussion but im going to give you one example that puts it in perspective. 1986. The 63 jews and 1986 is there for the soviet russian jews into israel so today account the russians and dont stop gaza. The idea that there isnt a problem is to ignore the reality and when you are close to 6040 you are already one state for two people. It has one law for everybody or it doesnt. The one thing you can guarantee is that palestinians are going to have a new mantra and its going to be one person one vote. That would be childs play compared to the impact this will have. Either way, the leaders have to make a decision. They are completely divided. They compete to see who can be more pure or not accommodating. So its not an option any time soon. Thaand this issue was one stater two people that is the issue that comes to the floor. For the leader to make the decision i wont go through all the items because i want to read the concluding chapter. They have to make a decision to do it. Stop building outside of the settlement blocs. About 5 of the territory we capture about 85 of all of those that live beyond the green light. So there is a basis on which to say and no building beyond the security barrier. They live beyond the security barrier right now and i cant tell you in the Tipping Point will, i can simply tell you its going to come and once you pass it, the israeli leader needs to make the decision to stop building outside of the blocks to preserve the option. I have a suspicion some help of the leaders were around and would identify the fundamental challenge to the future identity of israel, its character and who is going to be. And anything about them, everything you see when we describe how theyve evolved over time they understood what had to be done. He says to me all my successors or publications and what he means by that is they only make the political decision. We also outline what the United States can do to make it easier to make the hard decisions we outlined in the final chapter but of course you will read the chapter to find out what it is. [applause] by focusing on your final comments both in terms of being politicians in the United States, and i know he was using the term politicians. To be a politician if you have an idea you want to communicate to the public to convince people of the wisdom of your thinking. Are there any lessons for that part of the leadership not just that you are alone in the room ticking a tough decision. To follow you down the path of the tough decision which is also a critical part of leadership. I mentioned about the blitz he was struck by churchill. How do you get people to sacrifice for a greater cause and he thought if you could communicate well if you try to achieve they will go with you as long as they understand the stakes. Theres twitter and they didnt have these technologies to communicate. I think that was a good communication he take. They had the Radio Station and he goes on about the state and the partition plan. He didnt like the idea and said history wont accept it ultimately come and jerusalem and things like that. It was an anecdote how they invaded the british but he never fired a shot. Cecil the communication. Cuba since the bbc every day all the way until the day he died. The idea that even though they were in the underground and the militants say they thought their job was about communication, im sure dennis will talk about this, so i know they will say 21st century they couldnt be leaders today but they always understood the importance of communicating, and i think that was essential for them. It is well taken they were leaders but they were also political leaders. None of them would say im going to make this decision. Its going to be a politically costly and im going to ignore the political consequence of that. They were not prepared to allow the political consequences to deter them from making the decision. I think one thing that they all share in this goes back to a different way of describing what david said. One of the responsibilities was to be, not to follow their public. That meant they had to change should the attitudes in one way if they were confronting what was a broad consensus and they felt the consensus was wrong, they felt the need to educate, to explain the stakes to get out there and do it. Whats interesting is they were not communicators like this even in some ways he was separate from that regard. The others were not that necessarily that they Pay Attention to their speeches and in a lot of ways they are remarkable reflections of who they are. He gives speeches where he talks about the typical cost of the war, the impact the war of independence has long had. He gives speeches where he describes when you drive up the highway from tel aviv to jerusalem and see the war of independence and he describes that he can still hear the screams of his comrades and then he hears the silence and he talks about that. She does that actually quite often. He repeats that when he receives the nobel prize he talks about the cemeteries and what they represent the silence. It was their way of trying to lead and educate the public when he describes how difficult it was for him to shake hands with anybody that was there this is something that was gutwrenching for him to do that when hes explaining it in the speech he says i was representing the states of israel and we couldnt put our head in the sand and pretend that the palestinians did in texas. Hes poignant and when he gives a speech to explain, he says this is the hardest thing ive ever had to do and he talks about the debt he owes to the people that he sent. He says this is much harder than anything i did with the men i knew might not return because i put you there. You raised your family is there but then he says they have an obligation to the state and the state of israel requires this. Its not that they didnt see the need to try to affect the political climate, of course they did. They all understood the realities of some of the political realities in which they operated and the operate ae case. They thought to lead the public by explaining as well. I think all of them, and this was the feature of all of them as though i said. I want to ask both of you about the american relationship. Each of these four leaders have real moments of difficulty here in washington. Real moments of te tension. How did they see the value of this relationship for israel and how did that evolve briefly come and how did they deal with that moment on the verge of utter disaster for all four of them, whether it is the nukes with kennedy, whether it is harder, sharon any number of times, and even carter or kissinger. He had something no other Prime Minister ever had in it if you look at his diary, he feared the United States was going to attack israel. It isnt generally known, but when he sentenced him to see marshall, he feared that there might be an American Military strike on israel. This sounds so farfetched. The British Naval ships in the mediterranean in the summer of 1956 that were making the decision whether to go to support had two sets of orders in the thief on the ships. One was how to attack israel to defend jordan because of the treaty, or how to support the invasion of sinai because of the sinai campaign. On october 14, they call up the undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry and tells him to get off of his antisemitic about and call of the orders to attack. Two weeks before the war. They are not invited to the white house during his entire tenure. 16 years after the state was founded that was the first time they were invited to the white house. The first u. S. Military aid that was 14 years into the states so that relationship has grown into this striking how the challenge was. Of course i would say it had to be suez and the eisenhower basically the eisenhower threatening to kick israel out of the united nations, go on national television. Its stuff you could not imagine today. They did a withdraw. He extracted some commitment and unlike. He was at the Hamilton Hotel for ten weeks and somehow had faith in the American People and this goes back to the question about communication. He said i believe with america if we could only explain the justice of the cause, we will win the hearts of americans. He didnt have 1939 in britain that was his anger. That relationship is complicated. We dont have time for that now that we write about it in the book. Theres already the stature he had Louis Brandeis that he was 83yearsold and then 1939 they said we have to start all over again that we can talk to americans and make our case, said he had thisince he had thit there was a lot of low point of. He didnt witness the honeymoon in his lifetime but he still had faith in the american public. There was a brief moment where carter thinks that the economy idea was fantastic. He said i am also jealous of your numbers in israel. This is right after the visit she said i wish i had numbers in america like you have in israel, but he thought the ideas were very reasonable and he talked about the vote and wante boat ae palestinians to buy land in israel. Things you couldnt imagine any leader saying that in 78, things went down the hill and never really recovered. Their relationship never really recovered. He had faith in his case that ultimately he wanted to extricate himself from the conflict and he was willing to do that separate piece that is going to be hard for him. He wanted to make this a package deal, but the relationship wasnt covered. What youre asking is basically how do they seek to manage the relationship. I think in some ways he is the most interesting case because its worth, it was a close call at the first two years of the Administration May be the low point reagan gives a press conference and a lot of what is going on in the function, as the defense minister and then later when hes building the settlement which i tend to recall quite vividly, his approach is to sort of push the government to do what he thinks is the right thing regardless of the reaction. But when he is minister, his behavior is totally different. Now in his mind he bears the responsibility, and there is no more important relationship in the world with the United States. He doesnt want to be on the wrong side of the United States. Its true, he makes the speech on october 4 of 2001, but that triggers an opening and creates the opening for the channel between the white house and him. He spends an enormous amount of time before every visit here and wants to be sure he does everything right, he wants to be on the right side. One of the reason he reacts to, he feels the need to come up with an initiative is because hes worried about where the u. S. May be going so he spends an enormous amount of time focused on how he can manage the relationship when he becomes Prime Minister. He works hard to create a connection with president bush. In some ways he feels the need to do that precisely because of that existed with the first president bush so i would say he learns the lesson lessons and de Prime Minister he focuses heavily on us. Within underpinning to the strategic wellbeing. I know that you are with us and you have been listening to us. Do you have anything youd like to add about your fathers relationship here in washington . My father was very surprised to find out that he has more than the president of the United States. But he sold the relationship between israel and the United States as the most viable effo effort. It became something based on mutual values in a neutral way of thinking. [inaudible] and to have strong connections with jews around the world especially in the u. S. Because after israel is the most populated Country Services something that he thought was an israeli exit and that is something that he always had in mind and saw there would always be more to come and that was important. More questions in the back. Yes. My question goes back to what rob started which had to do with the big worldview the example that you made was the predicted russian falling and im wondering if anyone can add anything that came after that the decision to give the power that it has and how that fell out in terms of the consequence of the decision. She didnt have perfect foresight. No one has 2020 overtime. Like many, he had a young aide who negotiated the deal to give the exemptions to the ultra orthodox not to go to the army but to be able to stay and there was a picture of my grandfather learnein the holocaust might han been before the holocaust and he thought that this was a remnant that was kind of like just a remnant of what is left in europe that they didnt foresee the growth of the ultra orthod orthodox. That is the extending sovereignty is the belief that you have to shift the mindset and the character and you are building the institution you have to link the people to the land. He did not foresee the growth of any of that. I dont mean to suggest that he had perfect foresight. He did not. There is a letter of a bengurion writing to his grandfather in 1959 in hebrew he showed it to me saying i regret that decision of giving them the exemption but he thought they were negligible and what have symbolic value but it wouldnt affect things in the big picture. And he was all about the big picture. Thank you very much for the excellent presentations. With a characteristic of a good leader is the ability to deal with information. Closeup as a reporter and member of the Foreign Relations committee, i wonder what you thought of the relative analytical ability i would say in the cases they saw things that they were and they were both superb analysts. Basically for anybody that was analytical, he would present a case and say abc be and i would say once he thought something through and there was no possibility in the world of talking him out of it. On the other hand, if the reality proves that he is wrong about what is uncharacteristic as he would go into it to you and say you were right and i was wrong. I will give you one example. He came here two weeks after the beginning of the first intifada and i had to b happened to be oc at the time. I said what do you think is going to happen and he said if could go away. I traveled throughout the west bank not that long before and i felt the mood was very different and i said i had my doubts. Several months later when he said to me you were right and i was wrong and that was the first time. Because he thought things through, as i said, you couldnt move hi him to this reality butd him wrong he was intellectually honest. And i think what these leaders that h they had in common is thy were honest with themselves. They could hear bad news. They didnt exclude it. Next question right here on the right. From the university of Maryland University college. Since the book omits the golden era i wondere wonder if it is fr us to conclude that in your view it didnt measure up to the leaders as a flaw either i wonder if you could comment. I want to ask that more broadly. These are the top four. Who didnt quite make the cut to narrow it down to four wasnt a c. Because there were moments of those who took decisions and sometimes it was not to act. They didnt want to yield to the general pressure on the six day war but to coordinate with the United States even though they said we are losing the element of surprise and he thought that coordinating with the u. S. Was so important it was worth a delay a and he had everyone against him. Sometimes people did things. We used to joke nobody does anything better than the premier. By not responding during the gulf war he made sure the coalition didnt flat turn and the war could be persecuted against saddam hussein. It is hard. With its leader we could show an example. We were disappointed in the case of golda my year with the rise of. The signals that he sent. There is a debate about each of those signals that we dont have time for. On the other hand, he was not toptier on the pc shoe. If we would ever do a sql book on what these leaders would do with other issues like soviet jews, 1 million jews that come out of the soviet union in 1989909192 but not just because she was ambassador in moscow in 1948. She has a key role. Show mere isnt known for his big moves on the arab front but yet he is a key role in ethiopian issues. I was really struck. Seems like thousands of pages declassified that are all out there by now and just waiting for researchers to look at. His first meeting with carter, i have some idea on the jews of ethiopia in 1977. Operation muslim was 1984. The first meeting with carter ragan wants to raise it. We look often at the arab issue, the piece issue but these did things in issues that were not peace related. They were on persecuted communities or domestic issues. Maybe there is room for some sql. One of the measures was taking decisions you knew were hard, with golda, she has a reference to it. They were Creative Ideas how to respond to saidat, and she wont here of it. Interesting also that posing questions on each side, government doesnt have a response. Cant get a response. A decision not taken is okay. She didnt really measure up. Last question, yes. It is a bit offtopic for the middle east, i must have your reaction from the piece team. I felt you can disagree on points here and there, three key members of the piece team, his learning curve was most pronounced of the three. He was looking for win win and time to go through every one of them. If Jared Kushner looked up the economic parts of the peace plan that were unveiled in bahrain, and final status issues. On the political issues, jerusalem borders all that and departure has to be seen as a real setback. He believes this plan is to be unveiled. I noticed he doesnt use the word plan, this is our Reference Point for the future. All sides are sitting around the table. I knew he was paying for this. Thats what i take from it. There is a conspiracy school but what is good about this, we will know within 12 days if it is accurate. But they start within hours. Did he quit because trump was about to make a move in the next 12 days that would impact, there might not be speculation about it. Who knows if he returns to trump enterprises, he has loyal to this president , served as his attorney in a personal capacity. Im sure like all people in public service, it was a commitment for him to leave the private sector, he has 6 kids, twee of them in college, the are all expensive things, you are eating into your savings when you go to public service. I think the explanation on the surface is one that is never accepted. Having dealt with him a lot, he is a decent person, very respectful of others and understand the issues. I heard more than a year ago, he was going to stick around only until the plan was unveiled. That would have argued after the plan, not before hand that, that is the explanation that will be offered. The timing is a little strange and opens questions, low expectations about what unveiled the plan, there is going to be a negotiation after you unveil the plan so theres no reason to stick around on the eve of it but selling this plan is already a long shot. Taking the one person out of it who immersed himself in all the political issues, you can agree or disagree but he came to have an understanding with them, taking out the signal he is taking himself out certainly sends a message that the expectations, we will put it out there but dont expect much to happen after we do. Very good. Since i already tweeted on this issue, thank you, david, thank you, dennis. Thank you very much for staying with us and injecting your personal view of your father. That was an enormous contribution, thank you very much. Thank you for inviting us. For those of you whose appetite, you have to get a book, we have a bookseller out front that will accommodate you. Happy to sign them. And happy to sign it. Thank you for joining us today. [applause] [inaudible conversations] this week, you are watching booktv so you can see what programs are available every weekend. Watch top nonfiction authors and books and coverage of events, fairs and festivals and interviews on policy technology and more. Plus our signature programs in depth and afterwords. Enjoy booktv this weekend every weekend on cspan2. This morning the Atlantic Council holds the future on the future of the middle east in light of the growing power of china and renewed russian assertiveness in the world. Speakers examined the uss role in the middle east, north africa region and how the western worlds influence in those countries could be affected by china and russia. That even starts live at 9 00 on eastern on cspan2. Then a discussion of what is being done to protect and expand religious liberty around the us and the world. We will hear from trumpet ministration officials who work at the justice, education, health and Human Services department hosted by the heritage foundation