WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.540 So we have this this tendency, right? Maybe it's 00:00:04.540 --> 00:00:06.500 just a human nature thing. We turn our founding 00:00:06.500 --> 00:00:09.039 fathers into statues before the cement is even 00:00:09.039 --> 00:00:10.939 dry. We do. We polish them up. We put them on 00:00:10.939 --> 00:00:13.119 currency and we kind of forget they were actual, 00:00:13.259 --> 00:00:16.199 you know, people with flaws and contradictions 00:00:16.199 --> 00:00:18.440 and everything. Right. And usually the rougher 00:00:18.440 --> 00:00:20.899 the history, the shinier that statue needs to 00:00:20.899 --> 00:00:24.379 be to cover it all up. Exactly. But today we 00:00:24.379 --> 00:00:26.539 are stripping all that away. We're going to be 00:00:26.539 --> 00:00:29.519 looking at a figure who is. I mean, arguably 00:00:29.519 --> 00:00:32.560 the most significant Jewish leader since the 00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:35.219 biblical era. But if you actually look at the 00:00:35.219 --> 00:00:38.299 source material, the diaries, the recently declassified 00:00:38.299 --> 00:00:42.700 archives, he. barely resembles the nice old man 00:00:42.700 --> 00:00:44.799 you see on the Israeli banknotes. Not at all. 00:00:44.840 --> 00:00:46.619 We are talking, of course, about David Ben -Gurion. 00:00:46.740 --> 00:00:49.079 And to really understand him, you have to get 00:00:49.079 --> 00:00:51.299 comfortable with some pretty extreme contradictions. 00:00:51.500 --> 00:00:52.920 Yeah, that's putting it mildly. I mean, this 00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:55.020 was a man who called himself a socialist, but 00:00:55.020 --> 00:00:57.520 then built a Western -aligned capitalist -leaning 00:00:57.520 --> 00:01:00.560 economy. He was a self -declared atheist who 00:01:00.560 --> 00:01:03.179 studied the Bible every single day of his life. 00:01:03.439 --> 00:01:05.260 And maybe the most important one for our discussion. 00:01:05.780 --> 00:01:08.700 He was a man who genuinely seemed to want peace. 00:01:09.370 --> 00:01:12.450 but was prepared to be absolutely ruthless to 00:01:12.450 --> 00:01:15.189 get a state. Utterly ruthless. And not just to 00:01:15.189 --> 00:01:17.230 his enemies, sometimes to his own people. And 00:01:17.230 --> 00:01:19.409 when we say ruthless, we're not using that word 00:01:19.409 --> 00:01:21.939 lightly. We're going to get into some... Some 00:01:21.939 --> 00:01:23.640 pretty heavy stuff today. We're talking about 00:01:23.640 --> 00:01:26.760 things like political extortion, assassinations, 00:01:26.780 --> 00:01:30.260 even some really disturbing allegations of biological 00:01:30.260 --> 00:01:33.099 warfare. It's all in the record. That's the key 00:01:33.099 --> 00:01:35.519 thing here. We're working from some really heavy 00:01:35.519 --> 00:01:38.620 -hitting biographies, Tom Segev, Shabtai Teveth 00:01:38.620 --> 00:01:41.140 Plus, and this is crucial Israeli Defense Force 00:01:41.140 --> 00:01:43.760 archives that were sealed until the 1980s. And 00:01:43.760 --> 00:01:46.959 these documents just... They dismantle the mythology. 00:01:47.260 --> 00:01:49.319 They do. So the mission for this deep dive is 00:01:49.319 --> 00:01:51.219 pretty clear. We want to figure out how this 00:01:51.219 --> 00:01:53.680 specific guy, short, kind of grumpy, obsessed, 00:01:53.980 --> 00:01:56.680 managed to will an entire country into existence. 00:01:57.140 --> 00:01:59.680 Was he a hero? A villain? Or was he something 00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:01.239 else? Something that just doesn't fit neatly 00:02:01.239 --> 00:02:03.680 into either of those boxes? He was, I think, 00:02:03.680 --> 00:02:07.140 above all, a pragmatist. A Zionist Lenin, as 00:02:07.140 --> 00:02:08.960 some historians call him. That's a fascinating 00:02:08.960 --> 00:02:11.419 comparison. It is. But to understand what that 00:02:11.419 --> 00:02:14.280 means, we have to go way, way back. Before the 00:02:14.280 --> 00:02:16.759 state. Before the army, before the famous wild 00:02:16.759 --> 00:02:18.960 hare, we have to go to a small town in Poland. 00:02:19.159 --> 00:02:21.860 Right. Let's set the scene. He's born David Gruen 00:02:21.860 --> 00:02:25.919 in 1886. The town is Puszcz, which today is in 00:02:25.919 --> 00:02:27.560 Poland, but back then it was part of the Russian 00:02:27.560 --> 00:02:30.740 Empire. And his upbringing? It wasn't exactly 00:02:30.740 --> 00:02:33.319 typical, was it? No, it was political from day 00:02:33.319 --> 00:02:36.319 one. His father, Avigdor Gruen, was what the 00:02:36.319 --> 00:02:39.460 sources call a secret advisor. Which sounds like 00:02:39.460 --> 00:02:41.580 a spy, but what does that actually mean? It meant 00:02:41.580 --> 00:02:44.780 he was a fixer, a navigator. The Russian legal 00:02:44.780 --> 00:02:48.000 system was just an incredible maze of corruption 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:50.800 and bureaucracy. If you wanted anything done, 00:02:50.919 --> 00:02:52.800 you couldn't just follow the rules. You needed 00:02:52.800 --> 00:02:55.340 a guy. You needed a guy. And Avigdor was that 00:02:55.340 --> 00:02:58.139 guy. He knew who to bribe, which forms to file, 00:02:58.280 --> 00:03:01.360 how to work the system. So David, young David, 00:03:01.439 --> 00:03:03.460 grows up watching his dad basically maneuver 00:03:03.460 --> 00:03:05.960 around the law. He learns very early that the 00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:08.699 law isn't this sacred, immutable thing. It's 00:03:08.699 --> 00:03:11.560 an obstacle. An obstacle to be overcome. Exactly. 00:03:11.639 --> 00:03:14.629 And on top of that. He grows up with a lot of 00:03:14.629 --> 00:03:17.229 tragedy. His mother dies of sepsis when he's 00:03:17.229 --> 00:03:20.389 only 11. It's a devastating loss. And I was surprised 00:03:20.389 --> 00:03:21.909 to read this. He actually had a twin brother. 00:03:22.050 --> 00:03:25.650 He did, yes. Who died shortly after birth. That 00:03:25.650 --> 00:03:28.009 was a detail confirmed fairly recently from family 00:03:28.009 --> 00:03:30.270 records. So you have to imagine this young man. 00:03:31.079 --> 00:03:33.800 He's dealing with profound loss. He's living 00:03:33.800 --> 00:03:36.879 in a deeply anti -Semitic empire. And he's watching 00:03:36.879 --> 00:03:39.620 his father manipulate a corrupt legal system 00:03:39.620 --> 00:03:42.240 just to survive. It's a recipe for radicals. 00:03:42.240 --> 00:03:43.979 Well, a perfect recipe. And radicalized he did. 00:03:44.280 --> 00:03:47.219 By 14, he's starting a youth club called Ezra. 00:03:47.599 --> 00:03:50.099 to promote speaking Hebrew. I mean, at 14, I 00:03:50.099 --> 00:03:51.659 was collecting baseball cards. He was trying 00:03:51.659 --> 00:03:53.840 to revive an ancient language, and then by his 00:03:53.840 --> 00:03:56.219 late teens, he moves to Warsaw and gets swept 00:03:56.219 --> 00:03:59.300 up in the 1905 Russian Revolution. He's arrested 00:03:59.300 --> 00:04:01.680 twice. And this is where I want to pause for 00:04:01.680 --> 00:04:03.599 a second, because there is a story from this 00:04:03.599 --> 00:04:07.180 period that just, it floored me. It completely 00:04:07.180 --> 00:04:08.979 reframes how you see the man. You're talking 00:04:08.979 --> 00:04:11.379 about the gunpoint incident. I am. I mean, we 00:04:11.379 --> 00:04:13.500 think of prime ministers and statesmen. We think 00:04:13.500 --> 00:04:16.379 diplomacy, negotiation. We do not think of armed 00:04:16.379 --> 00:04:19.759 robbery. Can you break this down for us? So David 00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:22.899 Grin, as he was then, is an organizer for the 00:04:22.899 --> 00:04:26.160 Polay Zion Party, a Marxist Zionist group. There's 00:04:26.160 --> 00:04:28.540 a big garment workers strike. The workers are 00:04:28.540 --> 00:04:30.660 starving. They have no money for the strike fund. 00:04:30.800 --> 00:04:33.000 OK. So he goes to the wealthy members of the 00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:35.639 Jewish community in Posk and asks for donations. 00:04:36.519 --> 00:04:38.680 They refuse. They tell him to get lost. So what 00:04:38.680 --> 00:04:41.639 does he do? Well, he doesn't write a strongly 00:04:41.639 --> 00:04:44.339 worded letter to the editor. He comes back and 00:04:44.339 --> 00:04:46.819 he brings a gun. He literally held them up at 00:04:46.819 --> 00:04:48.819 gunpoint. He extorted the money. He basically 00:04:48.819 --> 00:04:51.220 said the cause is just the workers are starving 00:04:51.220 --> 00:04:53.379 and you have money. You will contribute. And 00:04:53.379 --> 00:04:56.480 they did. Wow. And in his mind, and you see this 00:04:56.480 --> 00:04:58.720 throughout his entire life, the cause in this 00:04:58.720 --> 00:05:01.279 case, the worker's survival justified the method. 00:05:01.639 --> 00:05:04.079 This is the seed of his entire political philosophy. 00:05:04.500 --> 00:05:06.879 He wasn't interested in being nice. He wasn't 00:05:06.879 --> 00:05:09.220 interested in consensus if it meant losing. He 00:05:09.220 --> 00:05:11.699 believed that if the goal is righteous, the tools 00:05:11.699 --> 00:05:14.779 you use, they almost don't matter. That is a 00:05:14.779 --> 00:05:17.560 lot to process, but it sets the stage perfectly 00:05:17.560 --> 00:05:20.439 for what comes next. So in 1906, he leaves the 00:05:20.439 --> 00:05:22.060 revolution behind and he heads to Palestine. 00:05:22.379 --> 00:05:25.420 He has his dream, right? Build a Jewish homeland. 00:05:26.620 --> 00:05:29.720 But the reality he finds there is just brutal. 00:05:29.980 --> 00:05:32.420 It's a complete shock to his system. He arrives 00:05:32.420 --> 00:05:35.819 in Jaffa and he expects this romantic pioneering 00:05:35.819 --> 00:05:38.600 life. Instead, it's hot, it's dusty, it's rife 00:05:38.600 --> 00:05:41.540 with malaria. But the biggest shock for him was 00:05:41.540 --> 00:05:43.779 the labor market. What do you mean? He expected 00:05:43.779 --> 00:05:46.459 to see Jews building the land with Jewish hands. 00:05:46.540 --> 00:05:49.319 That was the whole idea of labor Zionism. Instead, 00:05:49.579 --> 00:05:52.040 he finds that the existing Jewish agricultural 00:05:52.040 --> 00:05:54.480 settlements, the colonies, they're almost all 00:05:54.480 --> 00:05:57.519 employing Arab labor. Why? Because it was cheaper, 00:05:57.620 --> 00:05:59.740 and frankly, they were better farmers. They were 00:05:59.740 --> 00:06:02.079 more experienced with the local climate and conditions. 00:06:02.639 --> 00:06:05.120 So Ben -Gurion is this ideologue who shows up 00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:07.060 and can't even get a job building the Jewish 00:06:07.060 --> 00:06:09.480 homeland because he's being undercut. So what 00:06:09.480 --> 00:06:11.480 does he do? He becomes a manual laborer anyway. 00:06:11.720 --> 00:06:14.240 He tries. He goes to pay to Tikva to work in 00:06:14.240 --> 00:06:18.220 the orange groves. And he fails, mostly. The 00:06:18.220 --> 00:06:20.480 sources are pretty clear on this. His own diaries 00:06:20.480 --> 00:06:23.060 say he worked an average of maybe 10 days a month. 00:06:23.259 --> 00:06:25.899 So he was starving. He was literally starving. 00:06:26.120 --> 00:06:29.160 He caught malaria. He writes about watching his 00:06:29.160 --> 00:06:31.680 friends die of hunger and disease. It wasn't 00:06:31.680 --> 00:06:33.680 romantic at all. It was a desperate fight for 00:06:33.680 --> 00:06:35.540 survival. And then there's this period where 00:06:35.540 --> 00:06:38.459 he goes to a place called Segera, a remote colony 00:06:38.459 --> 00:06:41.500 up in the Galilee. And the sources describe him 00:06:41.500 --> 00:06:44.560 carrying a gun, standing guard at night. This 00:06:44.560 --> 00:06:46.600 feels like the transition from student radical 00:06:46.600 --> 00:06:49.259 with a pistol to something more like a soldier. 00:06:49.439 --> 00:06:52.420 Absolutely. Segera was the frontier. It was lawless. 00:06:52.480 --> 00:06:55.259 The colony was guarded by Circassian mercenaries. 00:06:55.259 --> 00:06:57.180 And there was a movement called Hashomer the 00:06:57.180 --> 00:06:59.220 Watchmen to replace them with Jewish guards. 00:06:59.439 --> 00:07:01.660 The idea being? The idea being that if you can't 00:07:01.660 --> 00:07:03.360 defend your own property, you don't really own 00:07:03.360 --> 00:07:05.839 it. Sovereignty begins with security. So he's 00:07:05.839 --> 00:07:08.180 patrolling at night, gun in hand, living this 00:07:08.180 --> 00:07:11.759 very tough militaristic life. But then, just 00:07:11.759 --> 00:07:16.259 as he's getting tough. He does this really weird 00:07:16.259 --> 00:07:19.180 pivot. It seems to come out of nowhere. He stops 00:07:19.180 --> 00:07:21.800 digging ditches and decides he wants to become 00:07:21.800 --> 00:07:24.899 a Turkish lawyer. It's pure pragmatism again. 00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:27.779 This is the Ben -Gurion pattern. He takes a step 00:07:27.779 --> 00:07:30.139 back, he assesses the situation, and he realizes 00:07:30.139 --> 00:07:34.139 the Ottomans run this place. If we want a state, 00:07:34.220 --> 00:07:36.560 we can't just be rebels in the hills or farmhands 00:07:36.560 --> 00:07:38.779 in the groves. That's not a strategy. We need 00:07:38.779 --> 00:07:40.740 to understand the levers of power. We need to 00:07:40.740 --> 00:07:43.079 work within the system to eventually overturn 00:07:43.079 --> 00:07:45.860 it. So he commits to this idea of Ottomanization. 00:07:46.120 --> 00:07:48.240 Completely. He starts learning Turkish. He trades 00:07:48.240 --> 00:07:51.000 his worker's cap for a fez. He moves to Salonika, 00:07:51.160 --> 00:07:53.600 a major Ottoman city at the time. And he even 00:07:53.600 --> 00:07:55.839 pretends to be a Sephardic Jew to fit in better. 00:07:55.980 --> 00:07:58.360 Wait, he faked his ethnicity? He adapted. There 00:07:58.360 --> 00:08:00.939 was a lot of prejudice between the European Ashkenazi 00:08:00.939 --> 00:08:03.180 Jews and the Sephardic Jews of the Ottoman Empire. 00:08:03.439 --> 00:08:06.339 So he just blended in. He changes his mannerisms, 00:08:06.339 --> 00:08:08.819 his accent. It's all part of the plan. And eventually 00:08:08.819 --> 00:08:11.220 he gets into Istanbul University to study law. 00:08:11.579 --> 00:08:14.759 What was the end goal? here to be a lawyer in 00:08:14.759 --> 00:08:17.740 Istanbul. No. The goal was to get elected to 00:08:17.740 --> 00:08:20.420 the Ottoman parliament. He wanted to be inside 00:08:20.420 --> 00:08:23.459 the halls of power fighting for Zionist autonomy 00:08:23.459 --> 00:08:26.439 from within the empire. It's amazing how flexible 00:08:26.439 --> 00:08:30.480 he was on tactics. But then, as always, history 00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:33.200 intervenes. World War One blows that whole plan 00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:35.820 up. It does. The Ottomans side with Germany. 00:08:36.059 --> 00:08:38.639 They become suspicious of Zionist activity, and 00:08:38.639 --> 00:08:41.539 they exile him. He ends up in Egypt, and from 00:08:41.539 --> 00:08:43.960 there, he makes his way to New York. And in New 00:08:43.960 --> 00:08:47.639 York, he meets his wife, Paula Munweiss. We have 00:08:47.639 --> 00:08:49.000 to talk about his personal life for a second, 00:08:49.019 --> 00:08:51.200 because he was not exactly winning any Husband 00:08:51.200 --> 00:08:53.639 of the Year awards. No. His dedication to the 00:08:53.639 --> 00:08:55.980 cause was absolute, which meant that his family 00:08:55.980 --> 00:09:00.019 often came second or third. Or fourth. So the 00:09:00.019 --> 00:09:02.720 British form the Jewish Legion to fight the Ottomans 00:09:02.720 --> 00:09:04.899 in Palestine. And Ben -Gurion signs up immediately. 00:09:05.039 --> 00:09:07.899 He sees it as the chance to get back. But he 00:09:07.899 --> 00:09:09.899 leaves Paula behind while she's pregnant with 00:09:09.899 --> 00:09:12.059 their first child. He doesn't see his daughter 00:09:12.059 --> 00:09:14.480 Gula until she's over a year old. That's cold. 00:09:14.879 --> 00:09:18.279 The cause came first. Always. But for all this 00:09:18.279 --> 00:09:20.139 soldiering and dedication, there's a really funny 00:09:20.139 --> 00:09:22.120 detail in the records about his time in the British 00:09:22.120 --> 00:09:25.870 Army. The AWOL incident. Yes. The great disciplinarian, 00:09:25.870 --> 00:09:28.909 the man who would demand absolute loyalty, goes 00:09:28.909 --> 00:09:32.149 AWOL. He was a corporal stationed in Egypt, and 00:09:32.149 --> 00:09:34.850 he just sneaks off to visit friends in Jaffa. 00:09:34.970 --> 00:09:37.830 And he gets caught. He gets caught, court -martialed, 00:09:37.830 --> 00:09:40.649 and busted down to private. The future defense 00:09:40.649 --> 00:09:43.370 minister of Israel. It's incredibly humanizing 00:09:43.370 --> 00:09:46.190 in a way. It shows he was still just this stubborn 00:09:46.190 --> 00:09:48.269 guy who thought the rules didn't really apply 00:09:48.269 --> 00:09:51.409 to him. That never changed. But let's fast forward. 00:09:52.149 --> 00:09:54.950 The war ends. The British take over Palestine 00:09:54.950 --> 00:09:57.889 under the mandate. Ben -Gurion comes back and 00:09:57.889 --> 00:10:00.710 starts his real rise to power, not through the 00:10:00.710 --> 00:10:02.490 military, but through the labor movement. Right. 00:10:02.570 --> 00:10:04.710 He becomes the head of the Histadrut. And we 00:10:04.710 --> 00:10:07.049 really need to define that because labor federation 00:10:07.049 --> 00:10:09.789 sounds kind of boring. Yeah. To a modern listener, 00:10:09.990 --> 00:10:12.129 a union boss doesn't sound like a state builder. 00:10:12.690 --> 00:10:15.190 But the Histadrut wasn't just a union. You have 00:10:15.190 --> 00:10:17.289 to think of it as a state in waiting. How so? 00:10:17.470 --> 00:10:19.830 It wasn't just about collective bargaining. The 00:10:19.830 --> 00:10:22.840 Histadrut ran its own banks. It ran the biggest 00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:25.320 construction company in the country. It ran the 00:10:25.320 --> 00:10:28.039 health care system. It ran bus cooperatives. 00:10:28.139 --> 00:10:31.299 It even had its own secret militia, the Haganah. 00:10:31.899 --> 00:10:34.500 So by controlling the history, he controlled 00:10:34.500 --> 00:10:37.039 the entire economic and social infrastructure 00:10:37.039 --> 00:10:39.620 of the Jewish community in Palestine, the Yishuv, 00:10:39.740 --> 00:10:43.019 and he ran it with an iron fist. This is really 00:10:43.019 --> 00:10:45.360 where that Zionist Lenin comparison comes from. 00:10:45.460 --> 00:10:48.659 Tom Segev uses that term extensively in his biography. 00:10:48.940 --> 00:10:50.799 What does it actually mean? He wasn't a communist, 00:10:50.899 --> 00:10:53.399 was he? No, not at all. He was a socialist, but 00:10:53.399 --> 00:10:56.399 he despised Soviet communism. He saw it as a 00:10:56.399 --> 00:10:59.100 tyranny. The comparison is about method. It's 00:10:59.100 --> 00:11:01.240 about how you achieve power and what you do with 00:11:01.240 --> 00:11:03.980 it. There's a fantastic story where someone asks 00:11:03.980 --> 00:11:06.399 Ben -Gurion why he admires Lenin so much more 00:11:06.399 --> 00:11:08.720 than, say, Trotsky. And Ben -Gurion says, you 00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:10.200 know, Trotsky is brilliant. He's an intellectual, 00:11:10.399 --> 00:11:12.730 a great speaker, a great maneuverer. But Lenin, 00:11:12.730 --> 00:11:16.269 Lenin cuts the Gordian knot. Meaning he just 00:11:16.269 --> 00:11:18.210 makes the decision that solves the problem no 00:11:18.210 --> 00:11:20.730 matter how messy or brutal it is. Precisely. 00:11:20.970 --> 00:11:23.289 Ben -Gurion didn't want to maneuver. He wanted 00:11:23.289 --> 00:11:26.330 to decide. He admired that ability to be decisive 00:11:26.330 --> 00:11:29.830 and, yes, ruthless. And he needed that ruthlessness 00:11:29.830 --> 00:11:32.029 because his biggest fights weren't always with 00:11:32.029 --> 00:11:33.990 the British or the Arabs. They were with other 00:11:33.990 --> 00:11:36.230 Jews. This is a huge part of the story that I 00:11:36.230 --> 00:11:38.950 think gets lost in the simple version. We assume 00:11:38.950 --> 00:11:41.110 the entire Jewish community was united in this 00:11:41.110 --> 00:11:44.889 goal. But you had the revisionist Zionists led 00:11:44.889 --> 00:11:49.149 by Zia Jabotinsky. Who were they? They were the 00:11:49.149 --> 00:11:51.389 right -wing opposition. They saw Ben -Gurion 00:11:51.389 --> 00:11:53.789 and the labor movement as too soft, too socialist, 00:11:53.950 --> 00:11:56.330 too willing to compromise with the British. They 00:11:56.330 --> 00:11:58.370 wanted a more aggressive militaristic approach. 00:11:58.629 --> 00:12:00.470 And by the 1930s and 40s, they had their own 00:12:00.470 --> 00:12:02.870 paramilitary groups. They did. The Ergon and 00:12:02.870 --> 00:12:05.809 the even more extreme Lehigh or Stern gang. And 00:12:05.809 --> 00:12:08.269 they were actively fighting a guerrilla war against 00:12:08.269 --> 00:12:10.509 the British. And this leads to something called 00:12:10.509 --> 00:12:12.620 the Cezanne. Or the hunting season. It just blew 00:12:12.620 --> 00:12:15.659 my mind when I read about it. Ben -Gurion actually 00:12:15.659 --> 00:12:19.039 ordered his people to kidnap other Jews. He did. 00:12:19.259 --> 00:12:21.460 It was essentially a civil war fought in the 00:12:21.460 --> 00:12:24.320 shadows. The Irgun was carrying out attacks on 00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:26.299 British targets bombing police stations, government 00:12:26.299 --> 00:12:29.700 offices. Ben -Gurion was convinced this was going 00:12:29.700 --> 00:12:31.299 to ruin their chances of getting international 00:12:31.299 --> 00:12:34.620 support for his state. So his logic was that 00:12:34.620 --> 00:12:36.960 they were undermining the entire project. His 00:12:36.960 --> 00:12:40.350 logic was there can only be one authority. So 00:12:40.350 --> 00:12:43.549 he ordered the Haganah, his militia, to systematically 00:12:43.549 --> 00:12:46.669 hunt down Irgun members. They kidnapped them. 00:12:46.690 --> 00:12:49.269 They set up secret interrogation centers. And 00:12:49.269 --> 00:12:51.090 in some cases, they tortured them for information. 00:12:51.389 --> 00:12:54.090 And then why? And then they handed lists of names, 00:12:54.250 --> 00:12:56.070 hundreds of them, over to the British colonial 00:12:56.070 --> 00:12:58.970 police. Handing Jews over to the British. In 00:12:58.970 --> 00:13:01.330 the middle of World War II, no less. That must 00:13:01.330 --> 00:13:03.570 have been seen as the absolute ultimate betrayal 00:13:03.570 --> 00:13:05.669 by the other side. It was. They called him a 00:13:05.669 --> 00:13:08.070 collaborator, a traitor. But for Ben -Gurion, 00:13:08.190 --> 00:13:11.049 it was that Leninist logic again. You have to 00:13:11.049 --> 00:13:13.850 crush internal dissent to achieve the main goal. 00:13:14.009 --> 00:13:16.350 If you have rogue militias running around, you 00:13:16.350 --> 00:13:18.350 are not a state. You are a collection of gangs. 00:13:18.970 --> 00:13:21.909 He was establishing the state's monopoly on violence 00:13:21.909 --> 00:13:24.370 before the state even existed. Which brings us 00:13:24.370 --> 00:13:28.090 directly to 1948. The British are leaving. The 00:13:28.090 --> 00:13:31.419 UN votes for partition. War is imminent and Ben 00:13:31.419 --> 00:13:33.720 -Gurion has to make the call. Do we declare independence 00:13:33.720 --> 00:13:37.879 now or do we wait? And it was not an easy call. 00:13:38.059 --> 00:13:40.519 The U .S. State Department, George Marshall himself, 00:13:40.840 --> 00:13:44.000 warned him not to. They told him, you will face 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:46.600 a second Holocaust. The Arab armies will sweep 00:13:46.600 --> 00:13:48.940 you into the sea. His own military advisors were 00:13:48.940 --> 00:13:50.879 split. They were. Some said they weren't ready. 00:13:51.389 --> 00:13:53.690 But Ben -Gurion looked at the situation, this 00:13:53.690 --> 00:13:56.029 very narrow window of opportunity after the British 00:13:56.029 --> 00:13:58.649 left and before the Arab states could fully coordinate, 00:13:58.889 --> 00:14:03.110 and he decided to jump. So on May 14, 1948, he 00:14:03.110 --> 00:14:04.809 stands up in Tel Aviv and reads the Declaration 00:14:04.809 --> 00:14:07.370 of Independence. But he wasn't celebrating, was 00:14:07.370 --> 00:14:10.330 he? Reading his diary from that time is sobering. 00:14:10.350 --> 00:14:12.389 It's chilling. His diary entry from that day 00:14:12.389 --> 00:14:15.389 isn't about joy or triumph. He basically tallies 00:14:15.389 --> 00:14:17.730 up the Jewish forces versus the invading Arab 00:14:17.730 --> 00:14:20.529 armies and is intensely worried. And elsewhere 00:14:20.529 --> 00:14:22.889 he wrote, the war shall give us the land. What 00:14:22.889 --> 00:14:25.250 a line. He knew that the nice borders drawn on 00:14:25.250 --> 00:14:27.789 the UN map didn't matter. What mattered was where 00:14:27.789 --> 00:14:29.509 the front lines were when the fighting stopped. 00:14:29.830 --> 00:14:33.090 And once the war starts, we see the Zionist Lenin 00:14:33.090 --> 00:14:37.279 in full. terrifying effect. We have to talk about 00:14:37.279 --> 00:14:39.799 the Altalena affair, because if the Cezanne was 00:14:39.799 --> 00:14:42.899 a shadow war, this was, well, this was open fire 00:14:42.899 --> 00:14:46.340 and broad daylight. It's June 1948. The state 00:14:46.340 --> 00:14:48.899 is just weeks old. The War of Independence is 00:14:48.899 --> 00:14:52.299 raging. And a ship, the Altalena, arrives off 00:14:52.299 --> 00:14:54.700 the coast of Israel. It's been sent by the Ergun 00:14:54.700 --> 00:14:57.600 from France. It's loaded with weapons. Loaded. 00:14:58.029 --> 00:15:00.470 Thousands of rifles, machine guns, millions of 00:15:00.470 --> 00:15:03.230 rounds of ammunition, and hundreds of volunteer 00:15:03.230 --> 00:15:06.309 fighters. Now, at this point, the Israel Defense 00:15:06.309 --> 00:15:08.570 Forces, the IDF, has technically been formed, 00:15:08.789 --> 00:15:11.909 but the Irgun is still acting as a semi -independent 00:15:11.909 --> 00:15:13.950 militia. You'd think in the middle of a war for 00:15:13.950 --> 00:15:16.470 survival, any guns would be welcome. You would 00:15:16.470 --> 00:15:18.830 think. Ben -Gurion's government wanted the guns 00:15:18.830 --> 00:15:21.350 desperately, but he demanded that they be handed 00:15:21.350 --> 00:15:24.110 over to the IDF unconditionally. And the Irgun 00:15:24.110 --> 00:15:26.230 leader... Menachem Begin, who would later become 00:15:26.230 --> 00:15:29.429 prime minister. He refused. He agreed to give 00:15:29.429 --> 00:15:31.629 some of the weapons to the IDF, but insisted 00:15:31.629 --> 00:15:34.269 on keeping about 20 % to distribute directly 00:15:34.269 --> 00:15:36.850 to his own Irgun battalions fighting in Jerusalem. 00:15:37.809 --> 00:15:40.809 Ben -Gurion saw this as a direct challenge to 00:15:40.809 --> 00:15:42.990 his authority. He saw it as the beginning of 00:15:42.990 --> 00:15:45.429 a coup. So what did he do? He ordered the IDF 00:15:45.429 --> 00:15:47.850 to take the ship by force. There was a firefight 00:15:47.850 --> 00:15:50.750 on the beach in Tel Aviv, and when the ship tried 00:15:50.750 --> 00:15:53.320 to resist, he gave the order to shell it. He 00:15:53.320 --> 00:15:56.299 shelled a ship full of Jews carrying weapons 00:15:56.299 --> 00:15:58.440 for the war effort while the ship was sitting 00:15:58.440 --> 00:16:00.340 off the coast of Tel Aviv for everyone to see. 00:16:00.460 --> 00:16:03.299 Yes, the ship caught fire and eventually sank. 00:16:03.920 --> 00:16:07.500 16 Irgun fighters and three IDF soldiers were 00:16:07.500 --> 00:16:10.539 killed. It was the closest the country ever came 00:16:10.539 --> 00:16:13.600 to a full -blown civil war. Menachem Beginin 00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:16.179 went on the radio screaming and crying that Ben 00:16:16.179 --> 00:16:18.340 -Gurion was a madman. And Ben -Gurion's reaction? 00:16:18.659 --> 00:16:20.360 He went to the provisional government and said, 00:16:20.440 --> 00:16:22.360 blessed be the cannon that shelled that ship. 00:16:22.519 --> 00:16:25.470 That is just... ice cold. It's the one state, 00:16:25.549 --> 00:16:28.950 one army principle taken to its absolute extreme. 00:16:29.230 --> 00:16:31.909 He was willing to kill his own people to ensure 00:16:31.909 --> 00:16:34.710 that the new state had a single, unified chain 00:16:34.710 --> 00:16:37.409 of command. He believed that without that discipline, 00:16:37.690 --> 00:16:40.590 Israel would fracture and collapse like so many 00:16:40.590 --> 00:16:43.009 other revolutionary movements. So he's ruthless 00:16:43.009 --> 00:16:45.470 internally. But we also have to talk about his 00:16:45.470 --> 00:16:47.429 conduct toward the Arab population during the 00:16:47.429 --> 00:16:50.389 1948 war. This is obviously one of the most heavily 00:16:50.389 --> 00:16:53.379 debated aspects of his legacy. Sources bring 00:16:53.379 --> 00:16:55.710 up something called planned dallet. Right. Plan 00:16:55.710 --> 00:16:59.090 D. Officially, this was a military plan drafted 00:16:59.090 --> 00:17:02.570 in early 1948, a set of guidelines for IDF brigades 00:17:02.570 --> 00:17:04.829 to secure the areas of the Jewish state allocated 00:17:04.829 --> 00:17:07.630 by the U .N. ahead of the expected Arab invasion. 00:17:07.890 --> 00:17:09.730 It sounds defensive. The language is defensive. 00:17:10.009 --> 00:17:12.529 Yeah. But historians like Benny Morris, who has 00:17:12.529 --> 00:17:14.750 spent his life in these archives, argue that 00:17:14.750 --> 00:17:17.410 in practice it functioned as an operational manual 00:17:17.410 --> 00:17:19.789 for the expulsion of Arab civilians from large 00:17:19.789 --> 00:17:22.289 parts of the country. So was there a signed written 00:17:22.289 --> 00:17:24.609 order from Ben -Gurion saying kick everyone out? 00:17:24.910 --> 00:17:28.579 No. And that's the crucial nuance here. Morris 00:17:28.579 --> 00:17:31.140 argues you will not find a piece of paper signed 00:17:31.140 --> 00:17:33.599 by Ben -Gurion that says expel the Arabs of Lydda 00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:37.180 or expel the Arabs of Ramel. But, and this is 00:17:37.180 --> 00:17:40.039 Morris' thesis, Ben -Gurion projected what he 00:17:40.039 --> 00:17:42.599 calls a message of transfer. A message of transfer. 00:17:42.740 --> 00:17:45.059 His commanders on the ground, people like Yegal 00:17:45.059 --> 00:17:47.859 Alan and Yitzhak Rabin, they knew what he wanted. 00:17:48.039 --> 00:17:50.339 They understood, without it needing to be written 00:17:50.339 --> 00:17:53.319 down, that a viable Jewish state required a decisive 00:17:53.319 --> 00:17:56.660 Jewish majority. And they acted on that unspoken 00:17:56.660 --> 00:17:59.299 understanding. So it was a wink and a nod policy. 00:17:59.579 --> 00:18:01.779 It was more than that. It was what the military 00:18:01.779 --> 00:18:04.160 calls commander's intent. And where the archives 00:18:04.160 --> 00:18:06.319 get really, really dark is when you look at some 00:18:06.319 --> 00:18:08.420 of the specific tactics that were used. You mentioned 00:18:08.420 --> 00:18:11.420 biological warfare earlier. I did. Operation 00:18:11.420 --> 00:18:14.019 Cast Thy Bread. It sounds like something out 00:18:14.019 --> 00:18:16.940 of a spy novel, not a historical archive. Is 00:18:16.940 --> 00:18:19.279 this real? It is real. It's documented in the 00:18:19.279 --> 00:18:22.720 IDF archives. In the spring of 1948, as Arab 00:18:22.720 --> 00:18:24.720 forces were advancing, Ben -Gurion authorized 00:18:24.720 --> 00:18:27.400 an operation to poison wells and water sources 00:18:27.400 --> 00:18:30.160 in abandoned Arab villages and even some that 00:18:30.160 --> 00:18:31.880 were still populated. Poison them with what? 00:18:32.019 --> 00:18:35.180 With typhoid and dysentery bacteria. My God. 00:18:35.640 --> 00:18:38.259 poisoning wells that's literally a medieval war 00:18:38.259 --> 00:18:40.980 crime the stated goal was to prevent villagers 00:18:40.980 --> 00:18:43.640 from returning to their homes or to hinder the 00:18:43.640 --> 00:18:46.339 advancing egyptian and other arab armies but 00:18:46.339 --> 00:18:49.259 yes it happened it just shows the sheer desperation 00:18:49.259 --> 00:18:53.000 of that moment and the complete Lack of moral 00:18:53.000 --> 00:18:55.839 red lines when they felt survival was at stake? 00:18:56.039 --> 00:18:59.460 For Ben -Gurion, survival trumped ethics every 00:18:59.460 --> 00:19:02.000 single time. And yet, and here's the contradiction 00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:05.680 again, the war ends. Israel wins a stunning victory. 00:19:05.900 --> 00:19:08.599 The army is strong. His generals, people like 00:19:08.599 --> 00:19:10.759 Yigal Elan, they want to keep going. They want 00:19:10.759 --> 00:19:12.680 to conquer the West Bank. They want to push all 00:19:12.680 --> 00:19:14.819 the way to the Jordan River. And Ben -Gurion 00:19:14.819 --> 00:19:17.450 says... He stops them cold. Why? If the war gives 00:19:17.450 --> 00:19:19.190 the land, why stop now when you have the momentum? 00:19:19.470 --> 00:19:22.029 Because he was a pragmatist, not a messianic 00:19:22.029 --> 00:19:23.869 conqueror. He was always looking at the demographics. 00:19:24.250 --> 00:19:26.650 He did the math. He knew that if he took the 00:19:26.650 --> 00:19:29.630 West Bank, he would be absorbing a massive, hostile 00:19:29.630 --> 00:19:31.490 Arab population. He didn't want to rule over 00:19:31.490 --> 00:19:34.069 them. He didn't want Israel to become a binational 00:19:34.069 --> 00:19:36.410 state. He wanted a smaller state with a solid, 00:19:36.490 --> 00:19:39.190 stable Jewish majority. It was a demographic 00:19:39.190 --> 00:19:42.410 calculation, not a military one. He chose Jewishness 00:19:42.410 --> 00:19:47.549 over territory. 1949. Now he has a state, but 00:19:47.549 --> 00:19:51.450 it's a mess. It's broke. It's flooded with refugees, 00:19:51.630 --> 00:19:54.430 both Jewish Holocaust survivors and Jews fleeing 00:19:54.430 --> 00:19:57.029 Arab countries. And it's surrounded by enemies 00:19:57.029 --> 00:19:59.789 who have just sworn to destroy it. This is the 00:19:59.789 --> 00:20:02.130 state builder phase. Yes. And this brings us 00:20:02.130 --> 00:20:04.730 to another massive, massive controversy, Germany. 00:20:05.200 --> 00:20:06.839 The reparations agreement. This might have been 00:20:06.839 --> 00:20:09.599 the most emotional, wrenching, political crisis 00:20:09.599 --> 00:20:11.960 in Israel's early history. We're talking about 00:20:11.960 --> 00:20:14.619 the early 1950s. The Holocaust is not history. 00:20:14.859 --> 00:20:17.859 It is an open, gaping wound. You can still smell 00:20:17.859 --> 00:20:20.180 the smoke. And Ben -Gurion decides to do what? 00:20:20.359 --> 00:20:22.720 He decides to enter into negotiations with the 00:20:22.720 --> 00:20:25.000 West German government, led by Konrad Adenauer, 00:20:25.140 --> 00:20:27.440 to accept financial reparations for the Holocaust. 00:20:27.759 --> 00:20:29.539 I can't even imagine the public reaction. People 00:20:29.539 --> 00:20:31.700 must have called it blood money. It was explosive. 00:20:32.920 --> 00:20:35.789 Menachem Begin. His old rival from the Irgun 00:20:35.789 --> 00:20:38.829 led massive, violent riots in Jerusalem. They 00:20:38.829 --> 00:20:41.369 threw rocks at the Nesset building. Begin got 00:20:41.369 --> 00:20:44.029 on a stage and called Ben -Gurion a traitor, 00:20:44.210 --> 00:20:46.309 a collaborator with the heirs of the Nazis. He 00:20:46.309 --> 00:20:48.529 famously shouted, there will be no negotiations 00:20:48.529 --> 00:20:52.400 with Germany. But Ben -Gurion, as usual. He didn't 00:20:52.400 --> 00:20:54.880 blink. He couldn't afford to blink. Israel was 00:20:54.880 --> 00:20:57.619 bankrupt. People were living in tents. Food was 00:20:57.619 --> 00:21:00.339 being rationed. He took a purely utilitarian, 00:21:00.559 --> 00:21:03.660 deeply unsentimental view of it. He said famously, 00:21:03.839 --> 00:21:06.880 let not the murderers of our people also be their 00:21:06.880 --> 00:21:09.400 heirs, meaning they stole our property. They 00:21:09.400 --> 00:21:11.619 destroyed our communities. They owe us. We will 00:21:11.619 --> 00:21:13.880 take that money and we will use it to build ships 00:21:13.880 --> 00:21:15.700 and factories and power plants for the Jewish 00:21:15.700 --> 00:21:18.529 state. And that money basically built the modern 00:21:18.529 --> 00:21:20.829 Israeli economy. It was the foundation of it. 00:21:20.869 --> 00:21:22.829 But it cost him an enormous amount of political 00:21:22.829 --> 00:21:25.490 capital. It reinforced this image of him as a 00:21:25.490 --> 00:21:28.470 cold, emotionless leader who would trade sacred 00:21:28.470 --> 00:21:31.769 memory for German marks. Speaking of cold calculation, 00:21:32.250 --> 00:21:35.410 let's talk about nukes. So sources are clear 00:21:35.410 --> 00:21:38.230 that he was obsessed. Obsessed is exactly the 00:21:38.230 --> 00:21:41.349 right word. From the very beginning, he believed 00:21:41.349 --> 00:21:43.609 that Israel's conventional military advantage 00:21:43.609 --> 00:21:46.410 would not last forever. He knew that eventually 00:21:46.410 --> 00:21:49.670 the Arab states, with their oil wealth and vast 00:21:49.670 --> 00:21:52.609 populations, would catch up. He needed an insurance 00:21:52.609 --> 00:21:54.920 policy. He needed the ultimate insurance policy, 00:21:55.079 --> 00:21:57.900 something to prevent a second Holocaust. And 00:21:57.900 --> 00:22:00.819 so in total secrecy, he starts the Dimona nuclear 00:22:00.819 --> 00:22:03.660 project in the Negev desert. Even keeping it 00:22:03.660 --> 00:22:05.660 secret from the Americans. Especially from the 00:22:05.660 --> 00:22:08.039 Americans. The Kennedy administration was furious 00:22:08.039 --> 00:22:10.759 when they found out. JFK demanded international 00:22:10.759 --> 00:22:14.299 inspections. Ben -Gurion lied. He stalled. He 00:22:14.299 --> 00:22:16.539 had his people build fake walls inside the facility 00:22:16.539 --> 00:22:19.079 to hide the reprocessing plant from the inspectors. 00:22:19.180 --> 00:22:21.440 He risked the entire alliance with the U .S. 00:22:21.440 --> 00:22:23.880 He did. Because in his mind, the bomb was non 00:22:23.880 --> 00:22:26.640 -negotiable. He believed that without it, Israel 00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:29.400 was ultimately living on borrowed time. It's 00:22:29.400 --> 00:22:32.099 a pattern. He listens to advice and then he does 00:22:32.099 --> 00:22:33.819 whatever he thinks is necessary for survival. 00:22:34.299 --> 00:22:36.680 But there's one event in the 1960s that feels 00:22:36.680 --> 00:22:38.720 a bit different. It wasn't about survival, really. 00:22:38.779 --> 00:22:41.019 It was about something else. The Eichmann trial. 00:22:41.240 --> 00:22:45.180 It was about shaping the national soul. In 1960, 00:22:45.420 --> 00:22:47.400 the Mossad carries out this incredible operation. 00:22:48.079 --> 00:22:50.799 kidnapping Adolf Eichmann, one of the key architects 00:22:50.799 --> 00:22:53.200 of the Holocaust, from a street in Argentina. 00:22:53.420 --> 00:22:55.819 And they bring him to Jerusalem. And Ben -Gurion 00:22:55.819 --> 00:23:00.380 insists on a full public show trial. Why? I mean, 00:23:00.400 --> 00:23:04.519 why not just, you know, hang him quietly? Why 00:23:04.519 --> 00:23:06.559 the big spectacle? Because Ben -Gurion looked 00:23:06.559 --> 00:23:09.079 at the younger generation of Israelis, the Sabres, 00:23:09.180 --> 00:23:11.480 the native -born kids, and he was worried. He 00:23:11.480 --> 00:23:13.599 saw that they were tough and tan and confident, 00:23:13.740 --> 00:23:15.799 but they also looked down on the Holocaust survivors. 00:23:16.180 --> 00:23:18.539 How so? They saw them as weak. They used derogatory 00:23:18.539 --> 00:23:20.559 terms. They didn't understand why the Jews of 00:23:20.559 --> 00:23:23.099 Europe went like sheep to the slaughter. There 00:23:23.099 --> 00:23:25.640 was a deep psychological disconnect. So he used 00:23:25.640 --> 00:23:28.460 the trial to teach them a history lesson. Exactly. 00:23:28.539 --> 00:23:30.759 He put the survivors on the witness stand day 00:23:30.759 --> 00:23:33.079 after day, telling their stories on national 00:23:33.079 --> 00:23:35.819 radio for the whole country to hear. It forced 00:23:35.819 --> 00:23:38.140 Israel to confront the horror of the Holocaust 00:23:38.140 --> 00:23:40.980 in a way it never had before. It changed the 00:23:40.980 --> 00:23:43.609 Israeli psyche. It essentially turned the Holocaust 00:23:43.609 --> 00:23:46.670 into the central pillar of modern Israeli identity. 00:23:46.990 --> 00:23:49.430 It was a masterclass in nation building through 00:23:49.430 --> 00:23:52.309 narrative. But his own political career, it doesn't 00:23:52.309 --> 00:23:54.730 end with some grand victory lap. It just kind 00:23:54.730 --> 00:23:57.410 of fizzles out in this bitter, complicated mess 00:23:57.410 --> 00:24:00.269 called the Levon Affair. So those really complex 00:24:00.269 --> 00:24:02.230 historical weeds. But what's the simple version? 00:24:02.390 --> 00:24:05.589 The simple version is a covert Israeli spy operation 00:24:05.589 --> 00:24:09.609 in Egypt in the 1950s failed disastrously. Years 00:24:09.609 --> 00:24:12.019 later, it's still being argued. about who gave 00:24:12.019 --> 00:24:14.339 the order. The defense minister at the time, 00:24:14.380 --> 00:24:17.599 Pinhas Lavan, was blamed, but he insisted he 00:24:17.599 --> 00:24:19.980 was framed by others in the military establishment. 00:24:20.339 --> 00:24:22.440 And Ben -Gurion gets involved. Ben -Gurion becomes 00:24:22.440 --> 00:24:24.420 obsessed with it. He demands investigations. 00:24:24.839 --> 00:24:27.000 He wants to know the absolute truth, who was 00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:29.299 responsible. The rest of his political party, 00:24:29.440 --> 00:24:32.539 Mapai, just wants to bury it to save face. It 00:24:32.539 --> 00:24:34.140 sounds like he just couldn't turn off that fighter 00:24:34.140 --> 00:24:36.119 vote. He had to have a final word. He couldn't. 00:24:36.160 --> 00:24:39.640 He saw it as a moral crusade for the truth. But 00:24:39.640 --> 00:24:42.000 his colleagues saw it as an old man tearing the 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:44.900 party apart over an old grudge. He burned so 00:24:44.900 --> 00:24:47.000 many bridges that he was eventually pushed out 00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:50.400 of power. He formed his own splinter party, Rafi, 00:24:50.440 --> 00:24:52.880 with people like Shimon Peres and Moshe Dayan. 00:24:53.099 --> 00:24:55.980 But he was essentially isolated. The old man 00:24:55.980 --> 00:24:59.380 had become a liability. So he retires. And this 00:24:59.380 --> 00:25:01.559 is the image that everyone knows. He goes to 00:25:01.559 --> 00:25:04.609 the Kibbutz Tudboker. Right. And for anyone listening 00:25:04.609 --> 00:25:07.109 who hasn't been there, Studeboker is not a nice 00:25:07.109 --> 00:25:09.950 retirement village in Florida. It is a simple 00:25:09.950 --> 00:25:12.769 wooden hut in the absolute middle of a desert 00:25:12.769 --> 00:25:15.789 moonscape. Why on earth did he go there? It was 00:25:15.789 --> 00:25:18.430 a statement. It was leadership by example. He 00:25:18.430 --> 00:25:20.690 passionately believed that the Negev Desert was 00:25:20.690 --> 00:25:22.809 Israel's future. That was where the space was. 00:25:22.869 --> 00:25:25.390 That was where the potential was. And he figured 00:25:25.390 --> 00:25:28.450 if the old prime minister can go live in a shack 00:25:28.450 --> 00:25:30.849 in the desert, maybe the youth of the country 00:25:30.849 --> 00:25:33.640 will follow him there and build the land. Not 00:25:33.640 --> 00:25:37.259 really. But the image, the symbolism was incredibly 00:25:37.259 --> 00:25:40.880 powerful. And it's there in that hut surrounded 00:25:40.880 --> 00:25:43.880 by thousands of books that you really see his 00:25:43.880 --> 00:25:46.019 personal beliefs come into focus. Let's talk 00:25:46.019 --> 00:25:47.779 about those beliefs because the contradiction 00:25:47.779 --> 00:25:50.539 theme really peaks here. We said at the top that 00:25:50.539 --> 00:25:52.880 he was an atheist. A devout atheist. He famously 00:25:52.880 --> 00:25:55.099 worked on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the 00:25:55.099 --> 00:25:58.799 year. He ate pork. He had absolutely no use for 00:25:58.799 --> 00:26:01.160 the rituals and superstitions of organized religion. 00:26:01.480 --> 00:26:03.799 But he quoted the Bible. Constantly was his favorite 00:26:03.799 --> 00:26:06.819 book. Because to him, the Bible wasn't a religious 00:26:06.819 --> 00:26:09.339 text. It was a history book. It was a political 00:26:09.339 --> 00:26:12.440 manifesto. And most importantly, it was a land 00:26:12.440 --> 00:26:15.380 deed. He loved the stories of King David and 00:26:15.380 --> 00:26:17.680 King Solomon and the ancient warriors of Israel. 00:26:17.920 --> 00:26:20.380 Why? Because he wanted to connect modern Israelis 00:26:20.380 --> 00:26:23.640 directly to that ancient sovereign past. He wanted 00:26:23.640 --> 00:26:26.259 to leapfrog over the 2 ,000 years of diaspora 00:26:26.259 --> 00:26:29.240 history, the ghettos, the persecution, the rabbinic 00:26:29.240 --> 00:26:32.099 Judaism that he saw as weak and passive. He wanted 00:26:32.099 --> 00:26:34.599 to create a new Jew who was a farmer. and a soldier, 00:26:34.680 --> 00:26:38.140 not a scholar. But wait, if he wanted this new 00:26:38.140 --> 00:26:40.559 secular code, this new Shulchan Aruch, as he 00:26:40.559 --> 00:26:43.160 called it, why on earth did he sign the status 00:26:43.160 --> 00:26:46.400 quo letter? I mean, for our listeners, this is 00:26:46.400 --> 00:26:48.920 the document from 1947 that effectively gave 00:26:48.920 --> 00:26:52.359 the Orthodox rabbinate total control over marriage, 00:26:52.559 --> 00:26:55.420 divorce, conversion, and public observance of 00:26:55.420 --> 00:26:57.640 Shabbat in Israel. It seems like the complete 00:26:57.640 --> 00:26:59.799 opposite of what he believed. It is one of the 00:26:59.799 --> 00:27:02.970 single greatest ironies in Israeli history. In 00:27:02.970 --> 00:27:06.170 1947, on the eve of the UN vote, he needed a 00:27:06.170 --> 00:27:09.190 united front. The ultra -Orthodox parties threatened 00:27:09.190 --> 00:27:11.390 to testify against the creation of a Jewish state 00:27:11.390 --> 00:27:13.470 at the UN unless they were given assurances. 00:27:13.690 --> 00:27:16.609 So Ben -Gurion, the atheist, cut a deal? He cut 00:27:16.609 --> 00:27:19.309 a deal. He promised them control over all matters 00:27:19.309 --> 00:27:22.069 of personal status. Well, why? Why would he do 00:27:22.069 --> 00:27:24.170 that if he despised their version of Judaism? 00:27:24.650 --> 00:27:26.549 Because he thought they were a dying breed. He 00:27:26.549 --> 00:27:28.829 was a modernist, a socialist. He looked at these 00:27:28.829 --> 00:27:30.529 men in black coats from the old world and he 00:27:30.529 --> 00:27:31.970 thought, in 20 years these people won't even 00:27:31.970 --> 00:27:34.430 exist. The new Israeli will be secular, modern. 00:27:34.529 --> 00:27:36.710 This is a temporary compromise. Let them have 00:27:36.710 --> 00:27:38.890 their little rules for now. History will erase 00:27:38.890 --> 00:27:41.440 them. Wow. He could not have been more wrong. 00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:45.220 He was spectacularly, monumentally wrong. And 00:27:45.220 --> 00:27:47.980 that letter he wrote in 1947 still dictates the 00:27:47.980 --> 00:27:50.680 lives of millions of Israelis today. It's why 00:27:50.680 --> 00:27:52.680 there's no civil marriage in Israel. All because 00:27:52.680 --> 00:27:55.240 of a deal an atheist made to secure a state he 00:27:55.240 --> 00:27:57.779 thought would be secular. That brings us to one 00:27:57.779 --> 00:28:01.200 last major contradiction. His view on the Arabs. 00:28:02.319 --> 00:28:05.039 Publicly, he often spoke about coexistence and 00:28:05.039 --> 00:28:08.440 equal rights. But you found a private conversation 00:28:08.440 --> 00:28:10.960 he had that tells a very, very different story. 00:28:11.380 --> 00:28:13.779 Yes. It was a conversation he had with Nahum 00:28:13.779 --> 00:28:16.519 Goldman, another major Zionist leader. And Ben 00:28:16.519 --> 00:28:18.539 -Gurion said to him, and this is a direct quote 00:28:18.539 --> 00:28:20.920 from Goldman's memoirs, I don't understand why 00:28:20.920 --> 00:28:23.099 the Arabs should make peace with us. If I was 00:28:23.099 --> 00:28:25.259 an Arab leader, I would never make terms with 00:28:25.259 --> 00:28:27.460 Israel. He actually said that. the founder of 00:28:27.460 --> 00:28:29.900 the state. He continued, he said, It is true 00:28:29.900 --> 00:28:32.619 God promised it to us, but how could that interest 00:28:32.619 --> 00:28:35.180 them? We have come here and stolen their country. 00:28:35.339 --> 00:28:37.339 Why should they accept that? That is shocking 00:28:37.339 --> 00:28:40.119 admission. Stolen their country. It shows that 00:28:40.119 --> 00:28:42.839 he wasn't delusional. He didn't buy into the 00:28:42.839 --> 00:28:45.359 simplistic propaganda that the land was empty 00:28:45.359 --> 00:28:47.880 or that the Arabs would just welcome them. He 00:28:47.880 --> 00:28:50.359 knew on a deep level exactly what the conflict 00:28:50.359 --> 00:28:52.980 was about. He just believed that the Jewish need 00:28:52.980 --> 00:28:55.079 for a home, especially in the immediate aftermath 00:28:55.079 --> 00:28:57.859 of the Holocaust, morally outweighed the Arab 00:28:57.859 --> 00:29:01.019 claim to the land. But he never lied to himself 00:29:01.019 --> 00:29:03.160 about the fundamental nature of the conflict. 00:29:03.400 --> 00:29:05.619 Which explains why he was so terrified in 1967. 00:29:06.119 --> 00:29:09.059 Exactly. The Six -Day War. The whole country 00:29:09.059 --> 00:29:12.000 is euphoric. The IDF has just won this incredible, 00:29:12.160 --> 00:29:14.559 shocking victory. They've conquered the West 00:29:14.559 --> 00:29:17.980 Bank, Gaza, Sinai, the Golan Heights. Generals 00:29:17.980 --> 00:29:21.519 are popping champagne. And Ben -Gurion, he's 00:29:21.519 --> 00:29:23.740 horrified. He warned against the war. Before 00:29:23.740 --> 00:29:25.819 the war, he fiercely criticized the government 00:29:25.819 --> 00:29:28.119 for mobilizing the army. He thought they were 00:29:28.119 --> 00:29:30.500 putting Israel in mortal danger without the explicit 00:29:30.500 --> 00:29:32.680 backing of a great power like France or the U 00:29:32.680 --> 00:29:35.200 .S. And after the victory, while everyone else 00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:37.339 was celebrating liberating the biblical heartland, 00:29:37.700 --> 00:29:40.000 Ben -Gurion's message was simple. Give it back. 00:29:40.240 --> 00:29:42.359 Give back. The guy who said the war gives us 00:29:42.359 --> 00:29:46.619 the land. He said, keep a united Jerusalem. Keep 00:29:46.619 --> 00:29:49.599 the Golan Heights for security reasons, but give 00:29:49.599 --> 00:29:52.880 back the West Bank and Gaza immediately in exchange 00:29:52.880 --> 00:29:56.039 for peace. He warned that becoming an occupying 00:29:56.039 --> 00:29:58.859 power over a large, hostile Palestinian population 00:29:58.859 --> 00:30:02.220 would corrode Israel's soul and ultimately destroy 00:30:02.220 --> 00:30:05.160 its Jewish and democratic character. He saw the 00:30:05.160 --> 00:30:07.640 trap, the trap that Israel is still in today. 00:30:07.880 --> 00:30:10.180 He saw it with absolute clarity. It was prophetic. 00:30:10.559 --> 00:30:12.619 He was always looking 50 years down the road. 00:30:12.759 --> 00:30:16.339 He died in 1973, shortly after the Yom Kippur 00:30:16.339 --> 00:30:19.049 War, which was a war that... Kind of proves his 00:30:19.049 --> 00:30:21.430 point about the dangers of arrogance and occupation. 00:30:21.849 --> 00:30:24.109 He died seeing the country in crisis once again. 00:30:24.450 --> 00:30:26.910 And he was buried where he wanted to be, at Said 00:30:26.910 --> 00:30:29.789 Boker, next to his wife Paula. Not on Mount Herschel 00:30:29.789 --> 00:30:31.410 with all the other prime ministers and presidents, 00:30:31.589 --> 00:30:33.789 alone in the desert. So when we step back and 00:30:33.789 --> 00:30:35.869 we look at the sledgehammer statue of the real 00:30:35.869 --> 00:30:38.390 man. What do we see? Is he the father of the 00:30:38.390 --> 00:30:40.809 nation? He's the architect of the nation. And 00:30:40.809 --> 00:30:42.990 like a lot of great architects, he was arrogant. 00:30:43.069 --> 00:30:45.049 He ignored the neighbor's complaints and he poured 00:30:45.049 --> 00:30:47.190 concrete over things that maybe should have been 00:30:47.190 --> 00:30:49.049 preserved. But he got the building built. And 00:30:49.049 --> 00:30:51.910 the ultimate question. Do you think the state 00:30:51.910 --> 00:30:54.670 of Israel would exist without him specifically? 00:30:55.529 --> 00:30:57.710 That is the question, isn't it? And I think most 00:30:57.710 --> 00:31:00.470 serious historians would say no. You needed someone 00:31:00.470 --> 00:31:03.869 with that very specific, very strange blend of 00:31:03.869 --> 00:31:07.150 socialist organizing skill, biblical fervor, 00:31:07.150 --> 00:31:10.890 and pure Leninist ruthlessness to navigate the 00:31:10.890 --> 00:31:13.509 labyrinth of 1948. A nicer man would have failed. 00:31:13.609 --> 00:31:15.630 A nicer man would have failed. A more democratic 00:31:15.630 --> 00:31:18.750 man would have hesitated at the Altalena. A more 00:31:18.750 --> 00:31:21.170 sentimental man would have refused German money. 00:31:21.690 --> 00:31:24.630 Ben -Gurion just, he cut the knot. And the knot 00:31:24.630 --> 00:31:26.930 is still cut that way today. For better and for 00:31:26.930 --> 00:31:28.930 worse. I think if you really want to understand 00:31:28.930 --> 00:31:31.609 why Israel looks the way it does today, from 00:31:31.609 --> 00:31:34.809 its military ethos to its tangled religious laws 00:31:34.809 --> 00:31:37.190 to its ongoing conflicts, you have to start with 00:31:37.190 --> 00:31:39.369 Ben -Gurion. And I highly recommend if you're 00:31:39.369 --> 00:31:41.009 interested looking up that status quo letter 00:31:41.009 --> 00:31:43.589 we mentioned. It is a one -page document that 00:31:43.589 --> 00:31:46.490 is a fascinating and deeply consequential rabbit 00:31:46.490 --> 00:31:48.890 hole. Absolutely. That's it for this deep dive. 00:31:49.049 --> 00:31:50.490 Thanks for listening. See you next time.