The Prime Ministers is an Enthralling Read

My heart sank when I saw the giant history by Yehuda Avner called The Prime Ministers, as a 700-page text can be rather daunting to any reviewer. As one critic noted, “History books are usually boring and historical figures are usually dead.” But the life-saver is suggested by the author’s sub-title: “An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership,” because that is exactly what this key aide, advisor, and speechwriter, now over 80, has captured here: a warm, meaningful collection of endless anecdotes from someone who was actually there: a true insider, in the best sense of that term. Here, in these irresistible collections of stories, do we meet and truly get to know the thinking and M.O. of Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, and--surprising to me--the real hero of this book, Menachem Begin. “He was a quintessential Jew,” Avner writes, admitting with some embarrassment that he had never been a supporter of the gruff, angry “terrorist” and “warmonger” before he got to know him and love him for his deep understanding of his people and their tragic history.

Reading this powerful, often stunningly-insightful “fly on the wall” collection of tales is strikingly insightful, even when it is most gossipy. As the British-born Israeli diplomat/writer tossed off wittily in an interview, “In very many of these meetings I was the note-taker, employing my own invented shorthand which I would then transcribe for the official record. However, I never threw away those scribbles. I confess I was naughty. Not that I ever contemplated I would one day use them.”

But “use them” he does, resulting in inside information which can often be shocking, thrilling, striking, even moving. It’s fun to hear a group of young fighters discussing what this new Jewish state should be called. “How about Yehuda? After all, King David’s kingdom was called Yehuda--Judea.” “Zion,” cried another. “It’s an obvious choice.” “Israel!” called a third. “What’s wrong with Israel?” At other times, we readers in 2010 may catch our breath as the author notes, almost in passing, that when the War of Independence began, “The Jewish State’s 264,000 soldiers were now poised to pit their prowess and grit against the Arab States’ 350,000, its 800 tanks against the Arabs’ 2,000, and its 300 combat aircraft against the Arabs’ 700. Such were the odds.”

The intimacy of Avner’s recollections can be shocking, such as when he overhears Golda Meir lash out in 1972, “Next year, I’ll be 75. I’m old. I’m exhausted. Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard there’s nothing you can do. You can’t stop the plane, you can’t stop the storm, you can’t stop time, so one might as well accept it calmly, wisely. I can’t go on with this madness forever. If you only knew how many times I say to myself: to hell with everything, to hell with everybody. I’ve done my share, now let other others do theirs. Enough! Enough! Enough!”

It is joyful to discover that the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had a deep love for Jews, and filled her cabinets with them to the point of overflowing. But it is sheer agony to read Menachem Begin snarling at President Carter, pointing at a map and lashing out, “Here, in the Tel Aviv area, live a million Jews, twelve miles from that indefensible armistice line. And here, between Haifa in the north and Ashkelon in the south, live two million Jews, two-third of our total population [in 1977], together with virtually our entire national infrastructure. . . . I submit to you, no nation in our region can be rendered so vulnerable and hope to survive. There is no going back to those lines. Abba Eban called them the Auschwitz lines. No nation can live on borrowed time.” I found myself weeping many times as I read through this book, at how close the young Jewish state came to destruction, had it lacked leaders with vision and a deep sense of history. How to respond to Prime Minster Begin screaming at a reporter,
“I speak of all the slaughtered little Jewish children [of the Holocaust]--of all the Moysheles and the Surales and the Yankeles and the Rivkales and the Dovidels. How much of the Jewish genius was choked and charred in the pits? How much was buried alive? Who can measure? To us the cost of the Holocaust will forever be paid.”

Perhaps it’s not surprising that President Nixon comes off as having no feeling for Jews, and that Henry Kissinger had his own problems with his German-Jewish heritage and youth. Ultimately, one revels in the hundreds of surprises and maybe thousands of little gems of once-secret exchanges between Israelis in power and non-Israelis who fought to limit or crush that power. I have rarely read a book which I can describe as “invaluable,” but Yehuda Avner’s The Prime Ministers is inarguably one of them. Buy a copy--it’s available in paperback--and share it with someone you love, and who loves the State of Israel. Yes, you will be able to say, “I was actually there! I, too, was present at the creation!”

Allan Gould, an author and lecturer, is the regular book reviewer for kolel.org.
He lives in Toronto with his wife, not far from his children.