Good afternoon and welcome to the Washington Institute im delighted to welcome youut all to this post labor day gathering, a celebration of the publication of this timely, important new book by my colleagues. When you are a leader and you get your face chiseled into Mount Rushmore is not because you did nothing during your time in office. Or you waited out the term, it is because those were the decisions that affected the fate of the nation often at moments of great crisis often decisions that were unpopular or that risked this would be your last from an office. But decisions that reflected your vision of the vision of the people and if you made it to rushmore or on a coin it is n because decades later your people look back and said thank you. To have the boldness and courage to take those decisions and remarkably a strong selfconfident country for many reasons its too complicated to go into them just for this event but to be blessed with rushmore leadership from the founding of the state over the past 70 years. And those moments that demand rushmore like decisions have not gone away. And that in a nutshell is what this book is all about. Those that rose to the occasion and who met history head on and to remind us in the lives ofns all nations and those that are still with us to hope that rushmore like leadership will rise to the occasion again to help the people of israel deal with those questions. It is such an enormous service as were all busy on our iphones tracking the ups and downs of the latest headlines of yet another Election Campaign of 2019 in israel. To remind us of the really big picture so thank you dennis and david for doing this service from thousands of miles away to remind us of the big picture and to countries around the world and certainly applies in israel. So with that, i want to do thisis plug on the global live streamed audience how israels most important leaders shape their destiny. And what challenges remain for rushmore like leaders. I want to congratulate both of you. I have a very special programam today in addition to having dennis and david talk about their fantastic new book, we have through technology to guests joining us. After david speaks dahlia is has a presentation who is the daughter that serves in the knesset and Deputy Defense minister and chair of the rabin center. After her pretapedta presentation we have rel sharons son live author of the bestselling biography of his father. He manages the family farm the past 30 years and still a member of the party major reserve duty elite army unit. We will go from david to dahlia and their perspective of their fathers and then to bat cleanup dennis will close the opening presentations and then we will turn the floor over to your questions. So first im pleased to bring to the podium my long time colleague who is the distinguishedti fellow director on arab israel relations and has had careers in journalism and scholarship in government and the Second Obama Administration serving as Senior Advisor for israelipalestinian negotiations and congratulations for this fantastic achievement. [applause] thank you very much. First i want to thank the institute and board of directors and senior staff who really helped to facilitate this. There is a bunch of researchse assistance gathered around but i want to thank all of them for all of their support to make this possible. Now why did we write this book . So we thought lets trace that met the bar of history i like that rushmore decision like middle east Mount Rushmore they leave legacies behind them. What doesnt mean they were Perfect People or every decision we agree with but this was achievement to into were. How do they make their decisions and what is the political courage they have even to confront longterm allies to make those decisions. I will focus as we divide this book up i focused on those two figures so im sure he will have a lot to say about everything including those two chapters. So what are the lessons and what made thesee people great . Each of these we could talk forever about but the question trying to be as telegraphic as i can for purposes of time, we focused on what was truly important. He had a central miss and to end homelessness after 2000 years. Not an easy thing tons take on he was tactically agile to achieveli that objective he what is zionism to britain in 1939 with the white papers and then phased out jewish immigration and then to start all over again with United States he actually lived here at the Hamilton Hotel on k street. This is the goal parkway thought it was the achievement now we have to change. He believes you need a mindset for the institution to link the people with the land. So immigration was the oxygen of zionism of unrelenting focus if you wanted to compromise on that issue that was the rubicon and the red line he would not cross thats why he breaks from britain in 1939. His belief was to achieve tha that, immigration was central because you were a minority at the time for equal rights for all but they have to have immigration and was not willing to compromise on that. He was also big because he understood not just inside out but outside in how the world events would impact zionism he was extremely well read he spoke 13 languages and taught himself greek during world war ii blitz and then they had a leader that could communicate to the public the way churchill did. He was prescient in this regard looking at world events. That doesnt mean he succeeded. I think he was a failure in h the thirties because he saw this as a race of zionism and hitler would take over europe he predicted after he got a hold of the munich train estation and said this could be a world war in a few years. The ground is burning that was central to him. He set i have no right to compromise on immigration because all these people will be killed in a few. Years. He didnt sense the enormity of the gas chambers but he failed because in a the thirties it was not enough but he understood world events were greater than anything else. And that was very important. Also ahead of thehe curve to say whats the next challenge . The arab states will go to war. And the main defense institutions there will be a war with countries. I was know who runs tank formations . He ended up restructuring the peoplermy and favored world war ii in the british army because they have experience. He got into a huge fight internally over this. So by the way in the 19 sixties said the soviet union will collapse in 30 years and it was 31 years. He was right but not always but he always looked outside in. He was not afraid of making a momentous decision. But once he locked in the Country First you cannot move him and he was a rock. This chapter is about his decisions to establish a state but bringing 835,000 tubes jews from the arab states so we think there is over 3 million americans in terms today. He accepted german reparations and people said you are dealing with the devil. And then the whole idea of the state itself against all odds. But then two days before when he gets the bad news from George Marshall to say i won world war ii you did not your generals are intoxicated they open the beach to jerusalem and he tried to argue with charette not to declare the state but then he came back and said at least agree to a three month extension. They did not agree that marshall said forget that but charette was not there but that threemonth truce he was there. But at that meeting golda meir comes back and says yes i told you would not win the war but i cannot keep my promise we are now a coalition of five. He gets the word theres been a massacre with the israeli settlement and then each one of these things we could talk about but we dont have timeme but then his own generals say maybe its not such a bad idea to wait three months. He said in the army they talk about that which is all true but its hard to believe 40 percent to the former chief of staff recently and said its amazing how far they have come from that moment. They always settle taken the information but through the analytical lens. His sense was a ceasefire will not be applied evenly. The un will monitor the ceasefire at jordan and iraq and syria and egypt . Know. They will not our biggest resources are our weapons and vemoney and immigrants we have been fighting now we have our moment in our justification so in the british are leaving in two days. Its now or never so having that sense of timing was critical. So bengurion was detached but always pushing for decisions that was ignoring it but he had that Analytical Framework based on his unswerving goal. Now if bengurion wanted to end you wish homelessness then the other was to jewish victimhood that they will never be victims again. He also had the equilibrium between values and interest and believed zionism had to be consistent with the Civil Liberties and that there was martial law in the arab communities. Thats wrong there are citizens there cannot be martial law i know the surprises 95 percent but you read in the cabinet debate and we have, went through hundreds of pages with a cabinet transcript after the 67 war and the one guy who wanted to give they palestinians we have to give them the vote. Is not people to his left or right but his framework was 19th century european liberals the germans gave the french citizenship that was 1967. And he had a very brief period of a honeymoon with jimmy carter and a sense that right about the time of december 77. Vague and and others another thing that he had was a sense of the justice of the cause had to be subordinate to national unity. But then hunting because of the things done by the british and another said start killing the people and held up a piece of paper and said you can have a just cause but it is a thin line b between a just cause and a contaminated one. You all know the story of the ship and the weapons coming in. We dont have time to get into details but people wanted to take revenge. Because they said you can be sovereign unless you are a monopoly with use of force but with fagan would say lets go after bengurion and then we could start killing them and fagan said no. And that defined him. And with the german reparations debate to hear the statements and not the actions but he was very proud no matter the justice of his cause of the ideological attachments did not overwhelm the broader commitment to the Country First. And then the last point about fagan is the biographer of the carter. In the eighties wrote their memoirs first he was very narrowly defined he got what he wanted with peace with egypt but did not giving up on the palestinian issue. Understand their point of view but in the eighties and the 1993 every israeli leader wasnt accepting the legitimate rights of the palestinian authorities but fagans move on autonomy and then not go far enough i in 2019 by setting the template could use him for political cover to go forward with the palestinians otherwise it was a sense of action and inaction but with bengurion for him that list of inaction was missing the moment he felt he couldnt miss that moment that it was too great to not give up the sinai, hit that there could been another one with egypt that risk of inaction was greater it caused factions against him and demonstrations against him everybody had umbrellas but he was attacked but he betrayed a cause and he felt when all this subsides the achievement of peace will endure. That is the point we forget that pease hashe endured. The point is look at what survived. It survive the assassination of sadat, two wars in lebanon , the brotherhood government in egypt and no one has been killedho in those 40 years that we just celebrated earlier this year march 26th of the peace treat treaty. So i think vague and deserve some credit and i hope we do another book on the heroic arab leaders or other key arabs to make key decisions that i think the fact that t peace endures people forget and what is that mean . 30 percent of israels gdp went to the military today it is about 5 percent and if you break it down with gdp my calculations is a 130 billion difference perca year that israel could put into roads and schools and clinics they have long foresight of all of these attributes and just for the purposes of time i will not but i hope i conveyed the sense that they have the foresight to say whats the legacy . I was rereading kennedys profiles of courage and we see this a book about israels profiles in courage he quotes whitman the great columnist kennedy does in 1956 and says the role of leaders is not to do what is popular but to do what is right. We the book conveys a sense here is a leader who had the political courage and did what was right because even if they have unpopularity at the time their legacies and achievements into her. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you david and now we will turn the house lights down and turned to dalia rabin. First of all i would like to congratulate you for your 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 that my father is included among the leaders that you chose to write about. My fathers leadership was, to my opinion quite unique. It was different. It changed from background a very active parents in the labour party and raised on labor and democracy, very rigid and straight. He graduated at the high school and spent most of his adult life in the army. I take most of his life that shaped his life was the war of independence, the way that we entered the war with so little ammunition and so little training and then to find him afterwards rethinking and making the conclusion that he will devote his life to a very strong army with a very Strong Defense and the whole part and then in the sixday war. You will find it in the book but i just want to say that there are symbols of that are the most important part of leadership o that first of all actually most of the first leaders of israel were very modest in their private life and he was more than modest. He was shy. He never took credit for things nor the people that he worked with are the soldiers that he fought with and the needs of the israeli country. And i think he served as a a role model for whatever the results were i think my father was actually the opposite with the relationship between the israel and the United States. He wrote in his biography now we have to transform to turn this victory into peace so he understood that those territories that we conquered during this war would bring about peace to the region and that this was his idea to create thehe relationship with a deep understanding between the United States and israel. He understood the potential allies of reaching for pieces only the United States it was still the cold war. Russia was still supporting the arabs especially egypt and he understood we needed the other superpower especially because the United States was the biggest democracy and this was his vision when he went to the ambassador. And he proved himself the president Vice President we were very much supported by the American Administration and he always said we should not take any steps forward without the clear support of the United States. And from his time as the ambassador based on americas Financial Support my father was not a hawk overnight. He was seeking peace after he left the army. And he thought if you have a normal life to have more liking of a global village. And those that no more want to die for the country. So slowly so the try to build that infrastructure with egypt in very pleased that was very supportive with the Israeli Government not successfully at that time and then coming to the agreement and then decided and did not like him professionally but that could bring the group and unfortunately they were dripping in very slowly and then they were on the background with israel and then through the Peace Process when i try to convince congress at the rabin center we got the First Support to our mission of ignoring the father with the contributions to the relationship. Thank you dahlia. [applause] so now we turn life. Can you hear me . Yes. Loud and clear. Im happy to be invited in a special event at a very young age with the life of jews and in those years ahead. That purpose of his life even as a young officer of that problematic reality that in which he was badly wounded but then the idea those thousands of terror attacks at the early 19 fifties. And then to find a way to Exchange Fire and then to establish the commanding unit. And the change came very quickly. We wanted to see who is this young officer and have the Prime Minister the difference between a strategic threat between the jews in the country so what do they do . They change the reality with those values. We do not return until we execute and do not leave our men behind and by doing that and at that level and then they have wider consideration sometimes they do and sometimes they dont they gave them the freedom to choose and gave them the option. Of every Successful Operation israel was completely different. We saw the sixday war with the chief of staff to talk about destroying israel and from the sinai and then he entered the Egyptian Army and in that danger of existence that was the situation. So as a Division Commander he attacked the main egyptian to the sinai into the peninsula. The army was beaten so by crossing the suez canal with a bold move which he was pushing to for the beginning of the war, he managed to change the course of the war and the defeat into a great victory first lebanon war and those that suffered from the heavy shelling of the rockets and using lebanon as a shelter. After week from the war and after 11 weeks 15000 terrorist and syrian soldiers were removed and when my father was elected Prime Minister they grew desperate. Its not just you had to go on a bus but you just didnt even want to stand by a bus as a