Day gathering and a celebration of this timely important new book by my colleagues. When you are a leader and your faces chiseled into Mount Rushmore and your picture on a coin its not because you did nothing during your time in office. But because you took Big Decisions affecting the state of the nation at moments of great crisis with decisions that were unpopular or risked that this would be your last term in office. Such reflected the vision and if you made it to rushmore or if you made it on a coin is because decades later people look back and said thank you for making those decisions and israel today remarkably strong for many reasons. And far too complicated to go into all of them that was blessed with leadership all the way over the past 70 years in those moments and that is in a nutshell with this book is all about. Of those leaders who rose to the occasion head on and to remind us and that rushmore like leadership will rise again to help the people with those questions. There is such an enormous service as we are all busy on our iphones tracking the ups and downs with the headlines of yet another Election Campaign of 2019 and israel to remind us of 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 that applies here, countries around the worl world, and certainly applies in this room so with that i want to do this plug in front of the global live streamed audience how israels most important leaders shaped its destiny and what challenges remain for the next set of rushmore like leaders. With that congratulations to both of you. We have a very special program here today in addition to having dennis and david talk about they are fantastic new book, through technology we have guests joining us. After david speaks we have a presentation from dahlia of course who is the daughter of praveen serving as Deputy Defense minister and as the chair of the rabin center and after her pretaped presentatio presentation, i have to point out we have sharon live who was Ariel Sharons son managing the family farm and the elite army unit with their respective fathers and then we will bat cleanup and turned to dennis to close the opening presentation and then after a couple of questions we will turn it over to your questions for the panel. So first im very pleased to bring to the podium my long time colleague which is the distinguished fellow director project on arab installations and has had careers in journalism and scholarship and government and the Second Obama AdministrationSenior Advisor to the special envoy for negotiations. Congratulations david for this fantastic achievement. [applause] thank you very much. Thank you to the institute and all the senior staff who help to facilitate this there is a bunch of Research Assistance thank you for your support and to make this possible. Now, why did we write this book works facing very fateful choice so lets trade for the people i like talking about the rushmore precision this is a middle east Mount Rushmore they leave legacies behind them that doesnt mean they were perfect. Doesnt mean we agree with every decision but they left a legacy to endure. So how did they make their decisions . And what is the political courage they have to confront with longterm allies to make those momentous decisions . I will focus and then dennis will summarize to focus on those two figures and theres a lot to say of everything including those two chapters. So what made these people great . Each of these we could talk forever about if there are questions im trying to be telegraphic for purposes of time. He was great because he focused on what was truly important to in jewish homelessness after 2000 years and not an easy decision that he took on. He was tactically agile in his ability to achieve that objective with zionism in britain in 1939 and phased out jewish immigration and then started off all over again and then at the Hamilton Hotel he said i thought this is a way to achieve the goal but now we have to change. He believe you need an institution and a mindset if you want to link the people with the land. And with emigration immigration is unrelenting focus anybody to compromise on that issue was the rubicon and the red line he would not cross thats why he breaks from britain in 1939. His belief was to achieve that that immigration was central because they were a minority at the time but they had to have immigration and not willing to compromise on that. And understood the inside in of the world events also extremely well read speaking 13 languages taught himself how to read following the blitz is also where he got the sense the public could be backed by a leader who could communicate to the public he was prescient in this regard with world events that doesnt mean he succeeded in many ways he was a failure because he saw this as a race but zionism and that hitler would take over europe he predicted in 1933 after he got a hold of the munich train station he said there will be a world war here in a few years. That was central to him writing that compromise of immigration because the people will be killed in a few years. He didnt sense the enormity or the gas chambers but he did fail because in the thirties he understood the world events were greater than anything else and that i think was very important. Also ahead of the curve to say whats the next challenge . That the arab states will go to war. And then the main Defense Institution that there will be a war with countries i want to know who runs that tank formation and then he would restructure the whole army and he favored people from the british army because they experience affirmation he got a huge fight internally over this talking about the next big thing in 1960 he said the soviet union will collapse in 30 years. He was right but not always right but he always looked outside in. He was not afraid to make a momentous decision even with the risk but once he locks in the Country First you could not move him. He was a rock. This chapter is about his road to the decision to establish a state but bringing in 835,000 arab and jew states it lost 1 percent of the population in the war it was broke and 3 million americans to put that in american terms he accepted german reparations because the country was broke and said youre dealing with the devil and then though whole idea to declare the state itself against all odds. The biggest day of his career was he gets all the bad news coming back from George Marshall to say i won world war ii you did not your generals are intoxicated this doesnt mean they will win the war and he tried to argue not to declare the state but he said at least agree to three months extension but they did not agree on the fundamental point that marshall said forget that but on the idea of a threemonth truce he was there. So then golda meir comes back and says yes now i cant keep my promise we are a coalition of five im not independent. He gets the word there has been a massacre with the israeli settlement which is actually the west bank. And then each one of these we talk about but that his own generals are saying maybe its not such a bad idea to wait three months 40 percent of our people in the army the former chief of staff is here and its amazing how far they have come from that moment that he always said i will take in the information but filter that through the analytical lens. And his sense was the ceasefire will not be applied evenly the un will monitor the ceasefire in jordan and egypt . Know. They will not our biggest resources are the weapons, money, peopl weapons, money, people, potentil immigrants fighting to open the gates and now we have the moment so what justification do we have if the british are leaving in two days . It is now or never so have the sense of timing i think was critical. So he was detached but always pushing for decision and it was an ambiguous but he took it in but he had that analytical framework. Now what was the greatness i think if he wanted to end the sense of jewish homelessness for jewish victimhood they will never be victims again. He also had sense that there has to be equilibrium between the values and he really believed that zionism had to be consistent with Civil Liberties dealing with martial law in the arab communities was wrong. I know this surprises the people that are here but in the cabinet debate in the transcript the one guy they did not even call them palestinians said we have to give them the vote. It wasnt people to the left door to the right that the germans gave the french and he repeated it with a very brief period of a honeymoon with carter right around the time of his autonomy of 77. That the sense of justice of the cause of unity then to hunt the people and some people said to hold up the piece of paper to have a just cause between a just cause and a contaminated one. We dont have time to get into the details but then to say you cant be sovereign that you have the monopoly go and as the principal lets go back and then start killing some of those and vague and said no. And that really defines him. And to be very proud and not overwhelmed and then the last point i would say is that the beyond biographers of the carter. Wrote their memoirs first. He got what he wanted he got peace with egypt but not on that palestinian issue. Certainly we could say they didnt go far enough in terms of 2019, but by setting the template, everyone internally could use bag and for political cover. The last one was a sense of weighing the risk of action versus the risk of inaction. For the risk of inaction was missing the moment. And, he felt like he cannot miss that moment. The risk of inaction was too great. For bag and, the risk of not giving up the finance. His view been another war with egypt, this could lead to something with the United States. It caused really clashes against him by comrades, demonstrations against him, but he was attacked that he betrayed a cause, but he felt when all of these had subside the achievement of peace will endure. And that i think is the. That we forget is that peace has endured. The. Is, look what has survived. It has survived the fascination of two wars in lebanon, it survived a muslim governor hood in egypt and no one has been killed in those 40 years that we just celebrated early this year on march 26. Of the p streeter in 1979, now 40 years later. So i think you deserve some credit. Of course these are books about israelis, i hope we feel another book on heroic leaders whether it is hussein or a guy like or some other key arabs that have make key decisions, but i think that the piece indoors, people forget what is that mean and in the 1970s, 30 of israels gdp went to the military. Today its about 5 . If you break that down in terms of the gdp, my calculations is like a hundred and 30 billion difference per year. Because of peace thats to put into roads, schools and clinics. So these people have long foresight and so, it is all of these attributes, i would go over them again but for the purpose of time i wont. But i hope i conveyed a sense that these leaders have a sense of foresight say and what is the legacy. I was rereading john of kennedys profiles of courage and we like to see this is a book about israels profiles of courage and he quotes Walter Whitman the great columnist, kennedy does in 1956 and kennedy says the world with leaders is not to do what is popular, it is to do what is right and we hope this book conveys a sense that those who had the political courage and did what is right because even if they had some unpopularity at the time their legacies and achievements endured. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you david. Now we will trim the house lights down in turned to dolly and ruby. First i would like to congratulate dennis and daisy for the publication of the new book. I was 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 from the stands that my father was included among the leaders that you chose to write about. My fathers leadership was to my opinion quite unique. He was different. He came from a background of very parents and the labour party. He was raised on the values of labor and democracy. Very rigid and strict. He graduated in the high school and spent most of his adult life in the army. I think that most significant part of his life that shaped was the war of independence. The way that we entered this war was so little ammunition, so little train and so little plans for programs for the war followed him afterwards doing a lot of rethinking and making the conclusion that hes going to devote his life to build a very strong army, very Strong Defense the whole part of the defense of israel the peak of his life was a six year 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 that he was very modest. Actually most of the first leaders of israel were very modest in their private lives but he was more than modest, he was shy. He never ran after, he never took credit for things. He never thought about himself. He was totally devoted to the people he worked with, the soldiers he fought with and the needs of the israeli country and i think that he served as a role model for a leader who always took responsibility for whatever the results were. I think that my father was actually the occupant of the israel and the United States. After the sixday war, he wrote in his biography, now we have two transform to make the fruit of this big victory into peace and this was 1967. So, he understood that during this war to play with and to bring about peace to the region. And this was his idea going to washington and create the relationship and a deep understanding and a deep bond between United States and israel. He understood that the potential ally to our reaching for peace there was still the cold war, russia was still a supporting the arabs especially egypt, and he understood that we need the other superpower to support us, especially because United States was also a democracy, the biggest democracy and this was his vision when he went to be ambassador to washington. And rightly slow, its true in the president by president we were very much supported by the admin or ken administration and he always head that we cannot take any steps forward without a clear support of the United States. And from his time as an ambassador israel started moving its force based on American Financial support and the american arms missiles submarine. My father was not a hawk that turned into a dog overnight. He was sitting peace ever since he left the army and after the sixday war. He witnessed the price and he thought for israel it wants to have normal life. Our society while more material life, more liking to be like the Global Village and our youngsters were more attached to the words and he understood with people no more wants to die for the country but they want to have good life here. So, he slowly, slowly tried to build the infrastructure for making peace in the region. First he signed an interim agreement with egypt and then he was very pleased he was very supportive and he was pulling the strings behind when he was ambassador trying to convinced Israeli Government but it was not very successfully at that time but after the war israel was more right for the piece. And then he tried to make it dialogue in the territories and he saw that whenever he came to an agreement with one of them they went to get the approval so after a long time his minister of defense he decided that if they go they have to bring things here and try to make the agreement. He was not friends he didnt like him especially but he saw him as one palestinian leader. Unfortunately the good were dripping in very slowly. He was assassinated and while the antagonism to the Peace Process grew stronger and stronger. When i tried to convince congress and senate to help me build the center i was on the hill for three days and i got very significant support from the left of congressman to our mission, knowing my father and appreciating his contributions to the relationship. Thank you. [applause] now we will turn to can you hear me . Yes. I am happy to be invited to the special events. How my father with the leader of israel. At a very young age his mission was guarding the life of jews. Protecting islam. Making islam strong in years ahead this was the essence of his positivity, the purpose of his life. Even as a young officer he change the problematic reality in islam. During the war during which she was he defeated seven armies but after the army after the war people left in the army lost its abilities and then the idea found himself helpless against thousands of terror attacks that started against islam in the early 1950s. The army could not find its way where they did find a way they Just Exchange fire. Now my father was a student released from the army when he was called to establish unique 101 a commanding unit. In the change came very quickly after only two months the Prime Minister and minister of defense there was very curious they wanted to see who is this young officer that not only gets in order and ever since he had an open door with the Prime Minister is something that was very unusual even back then. It is a tiny Little Country the difference between and so what did he do you change the reality they set standards. We do not return until we execute. We do not leave our men behind. And very high level of performance of action these are the things that he brought. By doing it he gave the government the political level, he gave them to choose something they did not have before. The army by nature always push for military action and political level they have wider consideration and so sometimes they approve and sometimes they dont but he gave them their freedom to choose. He gave them the military option. After dozens of very successful operations it was completely different. Before the sixday war wi