The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership (57 page)

Schindler asked him about his home life as a youngster, his early years as a Zionist, his trials as commander of the Irgun underground, his frustrations as a politician, and his aspirations as a statesman. The most personal and difficult questions he left to the end
–
those about the fate of the Begin family during the Holocaust; what their slaughter had done to him as a man, and as a Jew. And, yes, where was God?

As Begin began to explain the meaning of
kiddush Hashem
–
the sanctification of the Almighty’s name, even in the hell of the Holocaust
–
something diabolical occurred. The sound system below was turned up full blast, and a speaker was heard damning Begin as a Nazi, and calling upon the United Nations to dismantle the Jewish State. Begin, seemingly unaware of the intrusion, continued to dwell at length on what he called his
ani ma’amin
–
his credo
–
on why, even after the Holocaust, he remained a believing Jew.

But now the single voice grew to a chorus, which gradually swelled into a roar, as hundreds of distant voices from the street below welled up, yelling in unison a chilling curse in a rhythmic beat,
“
Begin, yemach shimcha! Begin, yemach shimcha!
”

As the protestors were calling down the wrath of God upon the prime minister, to obliterate his name from the face of the earth, he did not stop talking about his undiminished belief in
Elokei Yisrael
–
the God of Israel. In an almost whisper, staring straight into the camera, he said, “After the Holocaust, there is no command more supreme than that a Jew should never abuse another Jew, should never lift a finger against another Jew, and should endeavor to love his neighbor as himself.” And as he said these words, his eyes reddened, and he left the room.

A couple of months later, in the early hours of Sunday morning 27 May, four tourist buses, two Egyptian and two Israeli, came from opposite directions along the coastal road of northern Sinai, bound for El Arish. In those days, El Arish was a sand swept, lazy oasis of some forty-five thousand souls, anchored in desert dunes and lapped by a velvet sea. It was also the administrative capital of the Sinai, which was why Prime Minister Menachem Begin and President Anwar Sadat had chosen to meet there on that May morning for its ceremonial transfer back to Egyptian rule. The implementation of the peace treaty had begun and, with it, the gradual withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces from Sinai.

The passengers in the tourist buses were not tourists. They were disabled veterans of the two armies, who had charged at each other across the sands of Sinai, in tanks, in half-tracks, in gun carriers, in command cars, in helicopters, and in aircraft, attacking each other in combat in many wars, over many decades. Now, at Begin’s instigation and with Sadat’s concurrence, the wounded veterans had agreed to rendezvous at El Arish in a gesture of chivalrous reconciliation.

Prior to their arrival, honor guards and military bands of both armies had marched in unison across the parade ground in files of five, as the prime minister and the president took the salute. It was a thrilling spectacle to view at first, but then the bugles sounded, signaling the lowering of the Israeli flag and the raising of the Egyptian one.
Watching
it, many a
Jewish
face turned momentarily melancholy, showing an indefinable disquiet. Who knew how long this peace would last?

In rigid homage, the two leaders listened to the playing of their national anthems, after which they retired for a private talk, while a number of us, members of the entourage, strolled to the nearby flag-bedecked recreation hall where the wounded veterans were to rendezvous.

The Egyptian buses arrived first. They churned up much desert dust as they came into view, and drew to a halt at the entrance to the hall. There must have been about seventy men in all, resplendent in fresh uniforms of different rank and insignia, and all lavishly decorated in campaign medals. Their descent from the buses was painfully slow. Some were missing a foot, others a leg. At least four had had both legs amputated. Some wore hook-like contraptions where their hands had been, and the sleeves of those without arms were neatly folded back and pinned at the shoulder. A number were grotesquely disfigured; others blind. They walked, wheeled and limped their way into the hall’s cool interior, on crutches, with canes, and in wheelchairs. Medical orderlies guided them to the far end of the hall, where they were handed refreshments.

Five minutes later the two Israeli buses, red and cream-colored, pulled up, and the scene repeated itself. One by one, the Israeli war invalids emerged, some lame, some disfigured, some with artificial limbs, some paralyzed, some blind. Unlike the Egyptians, however, none wore uniforms or decorations of any sort. In wheelchairs, or leaning on crutches and canes, they were assisted by medical orderlies as they hobbled and rolled their way into the hall, lining up opposite the Egyptians.

Silence!

Eyes locked in a palpable maelstrom of conflicting emotions. The wounded appraised each other, as if striving to pick out the one who had pressed the trigger, pulled the pin, pushed the button. Gallant though this encounter was, no one had thought it through to the end. Nobody knew what to do or to say as the two groups of smashed men confronted one another across a distance of ten or twelve yards, that was an impassable no-man’s land. A restless stirring gripped the hall. Some asked orderlies to get them out. The wounds were too fresh.

Close to where I was standing, an Israeli in his thirties, blind, bent low to embrace a whimpering child. The child was eight or nine, with big eyes as black as his curly hair. Their resemblance was striking.

“
Kach oti eleihem
” [Take me to them], whispered the father, but the child looked up at his father pleadingly.
“
Ani m’fached mihem
,” [I’m scared of them], he sniveled. Gently, the father nudged the child forward and, timidly, the boy led the father into the no-man’s land. At his very first step, an Egyptian officer in a wheelchair, legless, began rolling himself toward them. They met in the middle and the officer placed the blind man’s palm into his own, and shook it. Instantly, the tension eased. A Jew began to clap; he was joined by an Arab. The sprinkling of claps quickly swelled into a burst of boisterous applause as the two groups moved toward each other, melting into a huddle of embraces, handshakes, and backslapping. With laughter and tears, the maimed soldiers of the 1948 war, the 1956 Sinai War, the 1967 Six-Day War, the 1970 Attrition War, and the 1973 Yom Kippur War fell on one another, calling out “Shalom!” “Salaam!” “Peace!”

It was in the midst of this embrace that Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat entered, and the applause rose to an even higher pitch. The two leaders circulated among the men, asking about their wounds and where they had fought. And when the two leaders mounted the rostrum to laud their brave armies and their wounded veterans, many in the crowd wept and called out to each other in Hebrew, in Arabic, and in English:
“
L’chayim!
”
“
Lihayot!
” “To life!”

Enveloped in the midst of this raucous camaraderie, the child clung tightly to his blind father. He looked bewildered, his eyes darting back and forth at the animated faces of Arab and Jew. As long as he could remember, he had played escort to a father who would never see because he had been made blind by these Arabs. To him, they would always be the enemy and, by definition, bad. Sensing his son’s apprehension, the blind man lifted his child into his arms, kissed him gently, and said,
“
Al t’fached b’ni. Ha’Aravim ha’eyle tovim
” [Don’t be afraid my son. These Arabs are good].

Photograph credit: Israel Government Press Office

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher receives Prime Minister Begin at 10 Downing Street, 25 May 1979

A few months later, Mr. Begin was invited to London, as a guest of the Anglo-Jewish community. It was not all that long ago that many of its elders had cold-shouldered the man as a nationalist lunatic, but now they were opening their doors wide to him, as a world statesman. It was in this spirit that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher hosted him for lunch at 10 Downing Street.

Few things tickled Mr. Begin’s fancy more than walking across the threshold of Number 10, for it was there, in the mid-1940s, that the order had been given to promise ten thousand pounds
–
what was then a huge sum
–
as a reward for information leading to his capture, dead or alive. Amazingly, now, British reporters were still pillorying him, and one, a bald man with the shape of a beer barrel, bellowed from the other side of the street as the prime minister emerged from his limousine, “Mr. Begin, people in Britain still call you a wanted terrorist. Any comment?”

Begin crossed over to the scrum of newsmen, and in an eminently reasonable tone said to the man, “You really want my comment?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then you shall have it. Kenyan Mau Mau leaders visit Britain and they are called freedom fighters. Cypriot insurgents, Irish revolutionaries, and Malaysian militias visit Britain, and they are all called freedom fighters. Only I am called a terrorist. Is that because I was a
Jewish
freedom fighter?”

“Are you going to ask Mrs. Thatcher for her support of the
recognition
of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital?” fired another, in a la-di-da accent. He was tall, smartly dressed in a blue serge suit, with a silk handkerchief neatly tucked into his breast pocket.

Frigidly, the prime minister answered. “No, sir
–
under no circumstances.”

“Why not?”

“Because, sir, Jerusalem was a Jewish capital long before London was a British capital. When King David moved the capital of his kingdom from Hebron, where he had reigned for seven years, to Jerusalem, where he reigned for thirty-three years, the civilized world had never heard of London. In fact, they had never heard of Great Britain,” and he turned on his heels toward the door, where Mrs. Thatcher was waiting to greet him
.

Over pre-lunch drinks, the talk was largely about the British leader’s support for the worldwide Jewish campaign on behalf of Jews in the Soviet Union who wished to emigrate to Israel.

“Those who manage to get out, are they readily absorbed in your country?” asked Thatcher. “Do they set down roots easily?”

Begin, who loved telling a story to illustrate a point, and who could be a flatterer if not a flirt in dealing with women, answered in a velvety tone, “Oh, they set down roots all right
–
excellent roots. Their contribution to our society is enormous. And I can well imagine your predecessor, Mr. Churchill, asking the very same question in this very same room.”

“How so?” asked the lady, intrigued.

“Because,” said Begin jovially, “when Churchill first visited us in nineteen twenty-one, Tel Aviv was little more than a few houses on sandy streets. So the then mayor, Meir Dizengoff, anxious to make a good impression, had several large trees transplanted to the entrance of his little town hall to give it color. However, the pressure of the crowd was so great that one of the trees toppled over, almost hitting Mr. Churchill. And he, dusting himself down, was heard to say, “My dear mayor, if you want to make an impression you must set down deeper roots. Without roots, it won’t work.”

The general laughter was followed by the British prime minister regaling her guest with stories expressive of her fervent admiration of Jews. “It has to do with my Methodist upbringing,” she exclaimed. “Methodism, you see, means method. It means”
–
her fingers bunched into a fist
–
“sticking to your guns, dedication, determination, triumph over adversity, reverence for education
–
the very qualities you Jews have always cherished.”

Begin responded with a small, modest smile. “I cannot deny,” he said, “that millennia ago, when monarchs did not even know how to sign their own names, our forefathers had already developed a system of compulsory education.”

Thatcher’s eyes were ablaze with enthusiasm: “Your marvelous chief rabbi here, Sir Immanuel [later Lord] Jakobovits, recently made exactly the same point. He said to me that the term, ‘an illiterate Jew,’ is an oxymoron. How right he is! He has…” – she paused as if to replenish her stock of awe and respect – “such a high moral stature, such an inspiring commitment to the old-fashioned virtues, like community self-help, individual responsibility, and personal accountability – all the things I deeply believe in.” And then, in a voice that was surprisingly acrid, “Oh, how I wish our own church leaders would take a leaf out of your chief rabbi’s book.”

Begin nodded, but said nothing. Perhaps this was because he thought it would be indiscreet to concur, or perhaps it was because he and the British chief rabbi did not always see eye-to-eye on the Jewish State’s vision of itself.

The two prime ministers were standing chatting in the Blue Room. A butler appeared at the door and, emitting a discreet may-I-have-your-attention-please cough, announced, “Prime Ministers, Gentlemen, lunch is served.”

“Do you know,” continued Mrs. Thatcher doughtily, as she led the way into the oak-paneled dining room, “in all the many years I have represented Finchley, my parliamentary constituency, which as you know has a high proportion of Jewish residents, I have never once had a Jew come to me in poverty and desperation. They are always so well looked after by their own. And that is absolutely splendid!”

Pundits would postulate that it was this cast of mind that accounted for the remarkably high number of Jews in the various Thatcher governments
–
six at one time or another, not to speak of close advisers. And in a class-conscious society like Britain where the aristocracy was almost solidly Anglican, her Methodist roots made her an ambitious outsider. So it was perhaps natural for her, the daughter of a grocer, to see Jews as kindred spirits.

“Now, let’s talk about your country,” said Thatcher. They had reached the dining room table, accompanied by half a dozen cabinet colleagues and aides. Through the window one could catch a glimpse of the prime minister’s lanky husband, Dennis, practicing putting on the back lawn, while from their gilded frames, Viscount Horatio Nelson and the Duke of
Wellington
stared down haughtily at the oblong table that seated four on each side. As Begin took his place alongside Thatcher, he gestured toward me with his chin, and muttered, “Yehuda,
mach hamotzi
.”
[1]

He was indicating a low corner table bedecked with a white silk Sabbath cloth draped over a plaited loaf of Sabbath bread – a challah – on a silver platter, together with an ornamental Sabbath bread knife, a jug of water, a glass bowl, and a hand towel embroidered with a Sabbath blessing, in Hebrew. A card placed discreetly by the bread, read, “Under the Supervision of the Sephardic Kashrut Commission.”

In her eagerness to please, this ever-vigilant, tough woman known as the “Iron Lady” had gone overboard in ensuring our kosher fare by turning a regular Tuesday lunch into a traditional Sabbath-style feast, with all its attendant ritual regalia. This left me wondering what best to do. The room went as mute as a tomb and I could feel Mrs. Thatcher’s sharp-edged gaze playing on my back, waiting for the ritual to begin. So, with nowhere to hide, I canonically performed the hand-washing libations, recited the blessing, cut the challah, which was so fresh it crumbled to pieces in my hands, chewed on a piece and, stomach tight, danced around the table, bowed, and proffered our hostess the crumbled bread on the silver platter, intoning, “Madame Prime Minister, wilt thou break bread with me?”

Thatcher was charmed. “Oh, what a delightful custom,” she cooed. “I must tell protocol about this. We should do it more often.”

Lord Peter Carrington, the foreign secretary, who was full of the self-confident repartee common to graduates of Eton and Sandhurst, ho-hummed in the authoritative, patronizing warble of the British upper class: “I bet you a wager, Mr. Begin, that I know what passed through your mind when I was introduced to you before.”

“Do you, Lord Carrington? I’m not a betting man, but please tell me: what did pass through my mind?” An impudent smile hovered over Begin’s features. All at the table were grinning at the banter.

The foreign secretary chuckled devilishly. “You were thinking to yourself: By George, those Camel Corps chaps at the British Foreign Office are a bunch of Arabists besotted with an irredeemable proclivity toward Arab interests. Am I not right? Come on
–
own up.” He gave an audacious smile and wagged a finger to add to the tease.

Begin raised his arms in a don’t-shoot pose, his eyes bright with mirth. “How did you guess, Lord Carrington? You are totally correct! And you put it so succinctly.”

Everybody let out peals of laughter, and Thatcher, laying on all her charm, said sportingly, “Oh, come, come, Prime Minister, you know Peter’s just joking. Israel has good friends here in Whitehall, even if we don’t always see eye-to-eye on everything.” And then, solicitously, “How do you find the salmon? It’s specially catered
–
kosher.”

“Delicious. Your thoughtfulness is appreciated.” And then, back to the foreign secretary, who was sitting opposite him: “What, pray, do we not see eye-to-eye about these days?” He was desirous of moving on to the crux of things.

Lord Carrington’s gung-ho manner vanished. Flatly, he answered, “Your bag and baggage approach toward settlements, mostly.”

A fiery light appeared in the Israeli prime minister’s eyes. “Bag and baggage?”

“That’s what I said,” replied Carrington, and he stepped into the ring and began punching hard, one-two, one-two, one-two: “Your settlement policy is expansionist. It is intemperate. It is a barrier to peace. The settlements are built on occupied Arab soil. They rob Palestinians of their land. They unnecessarily arouse the animosity of the moderate Arabs. They are contrary to international law
–
the Geneva Convention. They are inconsistent with British interests.”

In a voice like steel wrapped in velvet, Margaret Thatcher affirmed, “The foreign secretary is speaking on behalf of Her Majesty’s government in this matter.”

Begin chose to fight Carrington, not Thatcher. He leaned forward to focus his fullest attention on him, and the looks traded were malevolent. Then he let fly.

“The settlements, sir, are not an obstacle to peace. The Arabs refused to make peace before there was a single settlement anywhere. No Palestinian Arab sovereignty has ever existed in the biblical provinces of Judea and Samaria, where most of the new settlements are located, hence the Geneva Convention does not apply. Besides, we are building the settlements on state-owned, not Arab-owned land. Their construction is an assertion of our basic historic rights, not to speak of their critical importance to our national security.”

Lord Carrington’s face went blotchy. He would have none of it. Tempers were at flash point.

Abruptly, Begin turned to face Margaret Thatcher. “Madame Prime Minister,” he said, in a voice pitched to hit hard, “your foreign secretary dismisses my country’s historic rights and pooh-poohs our vital security needs. So, I shall tell
you
why the settlements are vital: because I speak of the Land of Israel, a land redeemed, not occupied; because without those settlements Israel could be at the mercy of a Palestinian state astride the commanding heights of Judea and Samaria. We would be living on borrowed time. And,”
–
his face went granite, like his eyes
–
“whenever we Jews are threatened or attacked we are always alone. Remember in nineteen forty-four, how we came begging for our lives – begging at this very door?”

The British premier’s brow creased in concentration, and she muttered pensively, “Nineteen forty-four? Is that when you wanted us to bomb Auschwitz?”

“No, Madame, not Auschwitz. We asked you to bomb the railway lines
leading
to Auschwitz. In the summer of nineteen forty-four, Eichmann was transporting to their deaths a hundred thousand Hungarian Jews a week along those lines to Auschwitz.”

Thatcher cupped her chin in profound contemplation, “You know, Prime Minister,” she said bluntly, after a momentary pause, “I have at times wondered what I would have done had I been here at Number Ten in those days. And I have to tell you in all candor, the policy of the Allies in those years was to destroy the Hitlerite war machine as speedily as possible. I would have agreed to nothing that would have detracted one iota from that goal.”

Menachem Begin went white. Clearly, the woman had not been briefed who this man was
–
a survivor of the Holocaust, orphaned of virtually his whole family.

“But Madame, this was nineteen forty-four,” he said, in a low voice reserved for dreaded things. “The Allies had all but won the war. You were sending a thousand bombers a night over Germany. What would it have taken to divert fifty, sixty, seventy aircraft to bomb those lines?”

“And what does this have to do with the settlements?” Thus, Carrington, barging in with malign consistency.

Begin, livid, turned on him and snapped: “Lord Carrington, please have the goodness not to interrupt me when I am in the middle of a conversation with your prime minister. Do I have your permission to proceed?”

Carrington went puce.

The shocked silence was interrupted only when Mrs. Thatcher, in a gesture of uncommon informality, placed a calming hand on Begin’s arm, and said, “Please do not allow yourself to get upset. You are truly among friends here. In my constituency, I go to synagogue more often than I go to church. And whenever there is crisis in your country half of my constituents disappear, and I know exactly where they are. They have gone to you. They have gone to Israel, to help.”

“Precisely, Madame Prime Minister,” said Begin. “As I said, whenever we are threatened or attacked, we have only our own fellow Jews to rely on.”

“Peter,” said Mrs. Thatcher softly, “I think an admission of regret is called for.”