Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, Volume 1 (9 page)

When she did address them it was, as she always preferred, without notes and briefly. “You must believe me”, she said, “when I tell you that I have not come to the United States solely to prevent seven hundred thousand Jews from being wiped off the face of the earth. During these last years the Jewish people have lost six million of their kind, and it would be presumptuous indeed of us (the Zionists in Palestine) to remind the Jews of the world that seven hundred thousand Jews (in Palestine) are in danger. That is not the question. If, however, the seven hundred thousand Jews survive, then the Jews of the world will survive with them.”
³

It was the very essence of political Zionism; the unstated but clear implication being that a Jewish state in Palestine had to be created and assisted to survive because it would be the ultimate insurance policy for all Jews everywhere.

Then, in her gritty, no-nonsense way she told them the Jewish community in Palestine needed between $25 and $30 million dollars within the next two or three weeks if it was to establish itself. “In a few months”, she told her audience, “a Jewish state will exist. We shall fight for its birth. That is natural. We shall pay for it with our blood. That is normal. The best among us will fall, that is certain. But what is equally certain is that our morale will not waver no matter how numerous the invaders be.”
⁴

Perhaps in anticipation of a challenge from those who did not support political Zionism she said she was not asking America’s Jews to decide whether or not the Jews of Palestine should fight. That was a decision only the Jews of Palestine could take and had already taken. Whatever happened on the battlefield, the Jews of Palestine would not be raising the white flag. There was, however, one thing the Jews of America could decide—whether the Jews of Palestine won or lost the coming war. “That’s the decision American Jews can make and it has to be made quickly, within hours, within days.”

Powerful stuff but she was not quite finished. “And I beg you, don’t be too late. Don’t be sorry three months from now for what you failed to do today. The time is now.”
⁵

Complete silence. For a terrifying moment she thought she had failed.

And then the place erupted. They applauded. They wept. And they pledged money in greater amounts than ever before. Recalling her triumph Golda said to me, “Some delegates even took out bank loans to cover their pledges.”
⁶
She said it as though she was still amazed and in a way that implied, “Not even I would have expected Jews to do that—but they did.”
⁷

In six weeks she raised more than $50 million dollars, an amount equivalent to three times the entire oil revenues of Saudi Arabia for 1947. When she returned to Palestine, Ben-Gurion found the right words in private to sum up her achievement. “Some day when history will be written, it will be said there was a Jewish woman who got the money which made the state possible.”
⁸

The amount of money Golda raised determined much more than the outcome of the first Arab–Israeli war. It enabled the Zionist State to become the military superpower of the region in a matter of months and to believe, as a consequence, that it could solve all of its problems with the Arabs, especially the Palestinians, by military means. Without a state of their own the Jews had a moral compass; but many of those who became Israelis threw their compass away. In that sense the amount of money Golda raised had a most corrupting effect.

Golda’s achievement was more than remarkable because she was, actually, bluffing. When she told them the decision to fight the Arabs had already been taken, she was telling the truth. What she did not say was that decision would have to be reviewed if the money to allow Israel to fight and win a war was not forthcoming.

On the world stage prior to Eshkol’s death Golda made her mark as Israel’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union and then as her country’s foreign minister. She had taken on that job in 1956 and retired from it a decade later at the age of 67. Everybody, especially Golda herself, assumed that the grandmother and old-age pensioner had come to the end of her working life.

If that had been the end of the story of her public life and service to her country, this Middle East correspondent would not have known her.

When Abba Eban succeeded Golda as foreign minister and she went into retirement, I was a 24 year-old reporter covering for ITN mainly wars and conflicts of all kinds wherever they were happening in the world. I had reported from Israel on the countdown to the Six Days War and I was the first foreign correspondent to reach the banks of the Suez Canal with the advancing Israelis.

Though I say so myself, my relationship on the human level with Golda Meir after she became Israel’s prime minister in 1969 at the age of 71 was very special, so special that it was a source of annoyance to some of her male ministers.

On one celebrated occasion when I was chatting with her alone in Jerusalem she kept her entire cabinet waiting for more than 25 minutes, kicking their heels in the outer office while she allowed our conversation to run on. Out of pure mischief Lou had refused to tell the ministers who was inside with their PM. When I said goodbye to Golda and entered her outer office, the ministers were standing around in small groups, talking. The talking stopped when I appeared and I could see irritation written on some of their faces. Then the whispering started. It was hushed by Lou.

“Alan”, she called in her commanding voice, “they’re talking about you... Do you want to know what they’re saying?”
⁹
Lou’s impeccable English was delivered with only a hint of a French accent unless she was exasperated or very tired.

“Why not,” I said.

By this time Lou was standing by my side as though ready to protect me. “They are asking what is so special about this
goy
.” She really stressed the word
g-o-y
as presumably they had. “They are puzzled about what their prime minister sees in you and why she gives you so much of her time.” Then Lou rattled off a few sentences in Hebrew. She was obviously amused and no doubt thought she was being amusing. But only some of the ministers were smiling when she stopped.

She turned to face me with a really big sparkle in her eyes. “Do you want to know what I said to them?”

She was going to tell me, anyway.

“I told them Golda likes you because you’re the only man who treats her as a woman. None of them do.”

Thereafter I was known in cabinet circles as Golda’s “boyfriend”. Dayan gave me that nickname. It was his way of sending me up. I got on quite well with him but he was a very difficult man to know. Even Golda herself was later to describe him as “the most complicated man”, with “faults like his virtues that were not small ones”; and “who doesn’t work easily with people and is used to getting his own way”.
¹⁰
I had the strong impression that Dayan was not enthusiastic about any
goy
having a special relationship with Israel’s prime minister. Deep down, and because of the Nazi holocaust, there was a part of most Israelis of Golda’s generation (and, probably, most Jews everywhere of the same generation) that would never be completely comfortable with any
goy
. And some Israeli leaders, Begin and Shamir to name two, were definitely
anti-goy
.

The key to my special relationship with Golda was the three dozen roses I sent to her with my calling card every time I arrived in Israel. The sending of the roses started as a gesture that was my response to a moment of revelation when Golda was chosen to be prime minister. The gesture became a tradition which I maintained until her death.

The moment of revelation came shortly after noon on Friday 7 March 1969. Prime Minister Eshkol was dead. The Central Committee of the ruling Labour Party was meeting to choose his successor. When informal consultations indicated that the Central Committee was split beyond repair on the matter of which man should succeed Eshkol, Golda had allowed her name to go forward as a compromise candidate.

It was a foregone conclusion that when the Central Committee met to make the decision Golda would be chosen to succeed Eshkol. For that reason most foreign television news teams in Israel at the time decided to give the meeting of the Central Committee a miss. There was not going to be a political fight and, anyway, it was not a visual story. That being so there was no need for foreign television reporters and their film crews to sit through several hours of political babble in Hebrew. The news story for the world— GOLDA MEIR TO BE ISRAEL’S NEXT PRIME MINISTER—could be illustrated with library footage of her and, at most, film of her leaving the meeting after the debate and the vote.

My journalistic assessment was different. I believed the event about to take place in the Labour Party’s headquarters would produce a great television news story—provided it was filmed in the right way.

About 440 members of the Central Committee were entitled to attend, debate and vote. Nearly a quarter of them did not bother to put in an appearance. I presumed the absentees were unchangeably opposed to Golda’s nomination but did not want to make a public show of saying so.

Golda sat in the main body of the assembled delegates, some distance from the stage on which the platform party was conducting the business of the meeting. Dayan was sitting next to her. That was quite interesting because he had been in the camp of those opposed to her becoming prime minister. I presumed he was sitting next to her as a way of indicating that he would be loyal to her. I told my cameraman that when eventually the voting took place and the result was announced, I didn’t want the camera focused on the stage and whoever was making the announcement. In that moment I wanted the camera zoomed in on a tight head-and-shoulders close-up of Golda. The rest was of no consequence.

I could not follow the debate because, apart from “Hello”, “Goodbye” and “Fuck you Nasser”, I didn’t understand a word of Hebrew. So I spent nearly two hours studying faces. It was the first time I had seen Golda in the flesh. And the more I studied her, the more I became amazed at what was happening.

Here, on the one hand, was this young, virile, arrogant, aggressive state which, not two years ago, had set a new world record for the speed at which a major war could be fought and won. There, on the other hand, not ten paces from where I was standing in the aisle, was this old woman. As old as my own grandmother and, if the appearance matched the reality, as frail as my grandmother. Golda was truly the stuff of which real legends are made, even by Israeli standards; but she was old, surely too old to take on the burden of being the state’s prime minister. It was not fair, I thought, for them to ask her to do so. Not fair? Why not? I was aware of two reasons.

In her personal life she had already sacrificed so much for her country. Her career had destroyed her marriage. Her husband had wanted more of her time than she felt she could give him because of the strength of her commitment to political work. Her relations with her children had also been damaged by the same commitment. Now she had grandchildren. Let her, at least, enjoy them to the full.

I was also aware—most Israelis were not—that Golda was dying of cancer. She was putting up one hell of a fight against the “Big C” but she was still dying. It was reasonable to suppose that the extra burden of worry Golda would be taking on as prime minister would reduce the time she had left.

It wasn’t fair.

The votes when the result of the ballot was declared from the stage were 287 for Golda with 45 abstentions.

Our ITN camera was running in tight close-up as I had instructed and it faithfully recorded, with the microphone taking in the applause, what I was seeing for myself. As her victory was announced Golda closed her eyes and, with sagging shoulders, buried her face in her hands. Not too much imagination was required to believe that she was listening to a voice inside her that was saying, “No. It can’t be. I can’t do it. I don’t want it.”

Reporters often make reference to the weight of the burden of responsibility on the shoulders of prime ministers and executive presidents.

For the first time in my life I had seen that weight descending and, more to the point, how crushing it could be. It was the transfer to Golda of that weight that had caused her shoulders to buckle. I was moved close to tears and I felt sorry for her.

On my way into the Dan Hotel I asked Albert, the duty concierge, to order three dozen roses. “Something special”, I whispered, “for Golda.”

When I had typed and recorded my commentary for the film report, I wrote by hand a short note to Golda to go with the flowers.

Naturally I offered my congratulations, but my main purpose was to tell her of the thoughts I had entertained as I watched the burden of responsibility settling on her shoulders; and how moved the
goy
had been.

I was not confident (for security reasons) that my roses would get as far as Golda. But early in the evening I was called from the bar to the telephone at the reception desk. The gravel voice at the other end of the line said, “I want to thank you for the roses and the thoughts that came with them.”
¹¹
(Subsequently, Golda told me that she had ordered her security people to treat my roses with respect. She meant and said that she preferred to receive them in good condition, not with their petals stripped by hands looking for explosive materials or a bugging device).

In the years that Golda was Prime Minister and I remained a cog in the wheel of institutional journalism, there was only one occasion when my special relationship failed to secure me the first foreign interview with her at a moment of high drama.