Yehuda Avner - The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership

The Prime Ministers

By the Author

The Young Inheritors: A Portrait of Israels Children
(Photographs by Gemma Levine)

Yehuda Avner

The Toby Press

The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership

Third Edition 2010

The Toby Press LLC
POB 8531, New Milford, ct 06676-8531, USA
& POB 2455, London W 1 A 5 WY , England
& POB 4044, Jerusalem 91040, Israel
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Yehuda Avner 2010

The right of Yehuda Avner to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

ISBN 978 159264 278 6, hardback

A CIP catalogue record for this title is
available from the British Library

Printed and bound in the United States

To my wife, Mimi,

our children,

our grandchildren,

and our great-grandchildren

This is not a conventional biography or memoir, nor is it a work of fiction. It deals with factual events and real people, most notably Prime Ministers Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin and Menachem Begin, all of whom I served in one capacity or another, junior and senior, over many years, and all of whom I have tried in these pages to bring back to life as I recall them. Having worked in their proximity in all manner of situations, good and bad sometimes so bad as to call into question Israels very survival I have sought here to resurrect episodes which illustrate their responses in times of stress, recreate some unforgettable intimate moments, and reenact their intertwining relationships and their dealings with presidents, prime ministers and other dignitaries all ratified, so to speak, by the viewpoint of the proverbial fly on the wall.

In so doing I have taken certain story-telling liberties by resorting to time-honored literary devices of narrative, dialogue, scene-setting , speech editing, impressionistic description, characterization, and reasonable constructs of conversations, without impinging too much, I trust, on historical truth.

Inevitably, an autobiographical footprint tiptoes often stomps through this personal narrative, firstly to illustrate the times into which I was born, secondly to introduce some extraordinary characters whose paths I crossed along the way, and thirdly and most significantly, to recapture how I came to be in the company of such amazing individuals , these early leaders of Israel, who were thrust into my life with such collision force that their hold on my imagination is intensely alive and personal still. I am everlastingly grateful for having had the opportunity to work for and alongside such prime ministers, and for having had my eyes opened to the fact that occasionally such larger-than-life champions of the Jewish people exist on earth.

For reasons which the reader will discover as the story unfolds, the most exceptional among them, in my eyes, was Menachem Begin.

Yehuda Avner

Jerusalem, 2010

Very many of the following pages are based on primary sources, not least my own copious records and notes. They exist because one of my tasks as a staff member for four prime ministers was to serve as their note-taker. Hence, in the preparation of this work I have been able to dip profusely into my own treasure trove of transcripts and personal diary notes. Additionally, I have had access to official correspondence and documentation, have perused biographies, have referenced autobiographies, and owe much to the testimony of people who feature prominently in this work and who gave generously of their time. I refer in the first instance to Yechiel Kadishai, Menachem Begins closest aide and confidant, who was forever willing to share with me particulars of events to which he was witness, and answer my many questions concerning the prime ministers attitudes and inner thinking, though unwilling, rightly, to share responsibility with what I did with them. My profound gratitude to The Rt. Hon. Sir Martin Gilbert, who, with his learned historians eye, perused the typescript, offered important suggestions, and graciously composed the foreword. Equally, to the Honorable Samuel Lewis, former United States ambassador to Israel, who not only shared with me his exhaustive oral history covering his tour of duty in Israel, but also rendered meticulous and invaluable help in my attempt to recreate certain of his crucial encounters with Prime Minister Begin. David Horovitz, editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post , kindly read the draft manuscript, and with his wise and critical attention to detail, offered invaluable suggestions.

It is with longing that I recall the late Harry Hurwitz, founder and first president of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, Jerusalem, who vetted many of the Begin pages as they were initially composed. I venerate, too, the late Eric Silver, an assiduous journalist and a personal colleague, who himself authored an important biography on Menachem Begin, and who subsequently deposited with me his extensive archive, which includes exclusive interviews with a number of the foremost actors gathered in these pages.

My thanks to all at the Begin Heritage Center, and most particularly to its director of information resources, Yisrael Medad, who reviewed the chapters relating to Begins command of the Irgun. Equally, I wish to thank the directors and staff of the various repositories in which I worked, or with which I corresponded, including the Israel Government Archives, the Jimmy Carter Library, and the Ronald Reagan Library.

My gratitude to all at The Toby Press for their judicious and expert attention to the book at every stage of publication, and most particularly to Matthew Miller, the man behind it all, for his patience and good fellowship. I am forever grateful to Deborah Meghnagi Bailey for her scrupulous and discerning editing in the highest professional fashion. Finally I am indebted to my literary agent, Joan Raines, of Raines and Raines, New York, without whose infinite persistence, encouragement, and indispensable advice I doubt I would ever have reached the last chapter.

Menachem Begin: Israels most extraordinary prime minister, infused with an overwhelming sense of Jewish history, a man of acute integrity, vision and compassion, who led a brutal fight against the British in Palestine, negotiated the historic peace treaty with Egypt, and launched a controversial war in Lebanon which was followed by his retirement into mysterious seclusion.

David Ben-Gurion: Legendary founding prime minister of the State of Israel, first minister of defense, intrepid pioneer and overseer of the countrys initial development, who pugnaciously fought Begin every step along the way until, mellowed by age, sought a reconciliation.

Zbigniew Brzezinski: Polish-born national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, who protested his admiration for Israel but never showed it.

Yosef Burg: Israels longest-serving minister, brilliant scholar in both religious and classical studies, witty, sharp, and head of the negotiating team in the failed talks dealing with Palestinian self-rule in the late 1970s, early 1980s.