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- [00:00]
Amit Segal
Foreign.
- [00:04]
Dan Sin
You are listening to an art media podcast. It's 7:15pm on Saturday, October 11, here in New York City. It's 2:15am on Sunday, October 12, in Israel, where Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump spoke a few hours ago before a crowd of some 400,000 Israelis gathered in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv and at other gatherings around the country, including a similar gathering in Jerusalem to celebrate the end of the war and hopefully, the imminent return of the remaining hostages. Here's an excerpt of what Steve Witkoff said tonight.
- [00:56]
Steve Witkoff / Jared Kushner
Tonight, we celebrate something extraordinary, a moment that many thought was impossible. Yet here we stand, living proof that when courage meets conviction, miracles can happen. A peace born not out of politics, but out of courage. The courage of those who refuse to give up hope. First and foremost, I want to honor the people of Israel. Your strength, your resilience, your unwavering spirit. Through unimaginable pain and loss, you have carried the weight of hope on your shoulders for the entire world. You've prayed, you've persevered, and you've shown the world that peace is not weakness. It is the highest form of strength. Through heartbreak and fear, you never let go of the faith. Your courage and endurance inspired the world, and it was your belief, joined with the bold leadership of my friend and prayer, President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, that made this peace possible.
- [02:23]
Dan Sin
I highly recommend watching the entirety of Steve Witkoff's remarks. They were very moving. The Israeli press is latching onto this one moment where Steve Witkoff praised and thanked President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. And when he mentioned Netanyahu, big parts of the crowd began booing. And that should not be the focus of tonight. To have these representatives from the US Administration saying the things they said in general about this moment was extremely powerful. And with that, I also want to play a clip from Jared Kushner's remarks.
- [02:57]
Steve Witkoff / Jared Kushner
October 7th for me, was a shattering day. My wife and I were at a friend's wedding in Colorado, and I remember hearing the news and I just went to the hotel room and I and I was looking at videos and trying to speak to whoever I could to get information, and I just stayed there all night and I cried. Seeing some of these acts made me think about how fortunate we are to have a society with rules and laws and people with morals. And seeing these horrific, barbaric acts shocked me to my core in a way that I'll never be the same. Since then, my heart has not been complete, and it's been a tremendous burden that I felt to see these hostages come home instead of replicating the barbarism of the enemy. You chose to be exceptional. You chose to stand for the values that you stand for. All I know, and I have complete confidence in this, is that what will rise from this trauma will be a level of greatness, a level of achievement, a level of impact on the world, a level of leadership that Israel has never seen. And I couldn't be prouder to be a friend of Israel, somebody who supports Israel and somebody who fights very strongly to. To see Israel survive, succeed, and to achieve its fullest potential. And just the final thing is I just want to thank the amazing soldiers of the idf. Without their heroism and brilliance and bravery, this deal would not have been possible.
- [04:49]
Dan Sin
Jared's remarks were very powerful. Jared's praise for. For the IDF and expressing his gratitude for the IDF in Tel Aviv. After two years of Israel and Israelis and the IDF being told that they're a genocidal force, that they're an apartheid state, to have someone like Jared saying, I'm grateful for the IDF is something that should not be lost on anyone paying close attention. And I just want to take one quick moment to say there are so many images out of tonight's rally that were incredibly moving and thought provoking and on point. And one of these images was an Israeli woman in Tel Aviv at the rally who had a big sign that read, ending hell, saving lives worth more than a Nobel Prize. So in a sense, that says, I think what many are feeling, and I hope the President, United States sees that, too. Finally, I just want to play some audio from an Israeli who spoke tonight, which is Rachel Goldberg Poland, someone who's been on this podcast many times. She has been an important voice for all of us.
- [05:54]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
And.
- [05:54]
Dan Sin
And I think she was perhaps the most important voice tonight in expressing what I've heard from so many Israelis that is not really captured in the coverage and the conversations many of us are seeing or having here in the Diaspora, which is. We're all feeling a sense of elation. There is that elation inside Israel, but it's balanced with sadness, with enduring trauma and a sense that the sadness and the trauma will live on long after these hostages return, for reasons that Rachel expresses tonight. And I just think it's important to keep that sentiment in mind in the midst of all of the excitement and all of the positive energy. So here's Rachel.
- [06:37]
Rachel Goldberg Poland
What is happening to all of us, Our nation right now is so deeply complex that my knees are buckling today in synagogues all over the world. We read the book of Qohelet, which is attributed to the wise King Solomon. It explains to us the futility of life, that there will be different moments in this life that seem diametrically opposed to each other. It says there is a time to be born and a time to die and we have to do both right now. It says there's a time to weep and a time to laugh and we have to do both right now. It says there is a time to hug and a time to hold back from hugging and we have to do both right now it says there is a time to tear and a time to heal and we have to do both right now it says there is a time to be silent and a time to speak and we have to do both right now and it says there's a time to sob and there's a time to dance and we have to do both right now. I know that the country, the nation, Jews all over the world are starving to celebrate and be done with this dark chapter. Believe me, I know. But we are not done yet. Until they are all home.
- [08:18]
Dan Sin
We will figure out a way to post the entirety of Rachel's remarks. I hope every Jew around the world watches what Rachel had to say tonight, and here are just a few more updates. Earlier in the day, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited a new CENTCOM base in Gaza, which is set up to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire as displaced Gazans were returning to their homes en masse. This followed the news that the US Military is expected to take a leading role in coordinating the International Stabilization Force, which will be formed as part of the ceasefire plan to police and rebuild Gaza. While American troops won't be entering Gaza, CENTCOM will be guiding and organizing forces contributed by regional allies including Turkey, Egypt and Qatar. Meanwhile, we're all anxiously awaiting for more details about the release of hostages, which is expected to take place either Sunday or on Monday, and will of course have episodes. Responding to events as they unfold will also follow President Trump's expected visit in the region in the coming days and his brief stop in Israel. Given the fluid nature of events, our schedule might get a little scrambled this week in terms of when we release episodes, but you can be certain that we're going to stay on top of the news as they develop. And now on to today's conversation. Earlier this week, hours before the news broke about the deal, I had an illuminating conversation with Archimedia contributor Amit Segal about his new book, which is called a call at 4am 13 prime ministers and the Crucial Decisions that Shaped Israeli Politics Amit's book is a thrilling historical survey of the exact moments in which Israel's prime ministers were faced with pivotal decisions that would change the course of the nation and its history. And incredible insights about each of these prime ministers political careers. Beyond being a gripping and insightful study, the book also gives us a glimpse into Netanyahu's own psyche in the morning of October 7, 2023, and the ghosts of past leaders mistakes that haunted him at that moment. Amit actually spoke to Netanyahu in the days following October 7th. I think he was the first journalist to speak to Netanyahu directly. I found this book one of the best explainers of Israeli politics for an international audience. I think we all have these caricatures and what really are myths about Israeli politics. And I think Amit does a wonderful job in this book and in this conversation to puncture many of those myths and provide a lot of context and a frame through which many of us can think about Israeli politics. And he also has some surprising favorite prime ministers that he focuses on as characters that typically don't get as much attention from historians or the press. So we will link to Amit's book in the show notes. It's now available in English. And here's my conversation with Amit about his book. All right, Amit, I wanted to have a conversation with you, as I mentioned in the intro about your book called a call at 4am 13 prime ministers and the Crucial Decisions that Shaped Israeli Politics. There's so much to cover in this book. I've been telling people that, at least in the English language, it is the most unique analysis and kind of take in an English language book about Israel that I've ever actually read. Read a lot of books about Israel because you try to explain to a Western audience what they don't understand about Israeli politics and they don't see. And those who cover Israeli politics in the west don't know how to cover what you talk about. And basically the point you're making is they're missing the most important story. And you present this through the experiences and the histories of over a dozen Israeli prime ministers. So just the history is really amazing and well done. So I want to just start with perhaps what is one of the juiciest, most compelling parts of the book, which is a story you tell in which you spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu three days after the October 7 attack. I think you were the first journalist to actually speak to him on the phone. So tell me about that call and why that call helps kind of provides a doorway into what you write about in this book.
- [12:32]
Amit Segal
So, first of all, thanks for the compliment. I do see the book as tour guides where locals eat. So this is how locals think. I mean, you can't understand Israel without understanding its hectic, messy political system, which is very, very different from the American one and of course, the British one. So you might see Israel as a black box that spits decisions and military operations without really understanding the soul of the country. So this moment that you describe might explain the whole picture. I remember this phone call because there was a friend of mine who was serving in the army on the northern border three days. I think it was October 10, 2023, after the attack from the south. And there was a in the air that Hezbollah is going to join. Now, Hezbollah was on the, you know, the hills overlooking the Israeli villages and cities and the pharaohs that are just going to. To storm into the. The valley in the occupied parts of Israel. So I just connected them because I didn't want to be blamed one day for not preventing the next massacre. I have a friend calling. It was a division commander, and I connected him to Prime Minister Netanyahu at Netanyahu's request. So before I connected them on WhatsApp, he told me, I asked, how are you doing? And he said, you should never go to politics.
- [14:00]
Dan Sin
Netanyahu said this? Yeah, Netanyahu, he said, you should never go into politics. This is a man.
- [14:05]
Amit Segal
Yes.
- [14:05]
Dan Sin
Whose whole adult life is animated by politics. It's his, it's his profession, it's his hobby, it's his, it's his everything.
- [14:13]
Amit Segal
It's even in his nature. Netanyahu knows how to run the show. And he has this very unique way of thinking, the multi layer thinking that you must have if you want to be an Israeli prime minister. Both knowing about something, how the US President would react to, and how the grassroots activist is going to react to. So you can survive because you manage all the layers in which politics is decided. For instance, Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister, was busy negotiating between Zelensky and Putin, so he forgot a Knesset member that defected, thus toppling his government. So Netanyahu controls the system. And to hear from Netanyahu three days after the massacre, you should never go to politics. For me, it resembled something that I wrote about in the book, but I didn't know what I was writing. The last chapter in the book deals with the inevitable end of a prime minister's career, an inevitable Tragedy now, because we don't have fixed terms in Israel and because Israeli prime ministers always think that they can rule forever the outcome, since we don't live forever and not ruling forever, that it ends with a tragedy. And I knew it's going to end with a tragedy. I just didn't know that it's going to be Israel's biggest tragedy since the Holocaust. That what might shape Netanyahu's image in History is October 7th.
- [15:40]
Dan Sin
Your book opens with this image of a phone call in the middle of the night that seems to blur reality and some kind of, like, dream. Talk about why you, you chose to open the book that way and what the call represents to you.
- [15:54]
Amit Segal
The call represents the red phone, the phone that every prime minister has that might ring in the dark of the night saying that the war is going to erupt. Now, the phone in Netanyahu's bedroom didn't ring on October 7th. This is one ingredient of the tragedy. But for Golda Meyer, it rank and the most horrific thing to know about Golda Mayer, that in the weeks prior to Yom Kippur War, she had an ongoing dream about red phones ringing all over her apartment. And she woke up every night with this dream, and she tried to understand what it means. I guess her consciousness tried to tell her that something really bad is happening in the security establishment, that the war is might erupt. But the only night she didn't have this dream was the night of October 6th, the day the Yom Kippur War erupted. That night.
- [16:47]
Dan Sin
October 6th, 1973.
- [16:49]
Amit Segal
1973. Of course, that night a real phone rang at 4am this is the name of the book, letting her know that there was one sentence in this phone call from the head of Mossad, today a war is going to erupt.
- [17:03]
Dan Sin
I mean, just staying on that imagery of the phone call. And you say that Netanyahu didn't get the phone call.
- [17:08]
Amit Segal
Right.
- [17:08]
Dan Sin
I don't want to digress here, but do you think things would have been much different had Netanyahu gotten the 4:00am call? Tactically, yes, because we talked about, like in our episode with Yaakov Katz, he goes through hour by hour how the security establishment was identifying signs and it just chose with all those signs not to transmit the information to the prime minister. Netanyahu, that's part of his narrative now, is that I was never called, I was never notified. So then the question is, what difference.
- [17:34]
Amit Segal
Would Netanyahu change things on the spot had he got the call? I guess, yes. But it, it wouldn't have changed the bigger picture in which Israel treated Hamas and Paul Hezbollah as distractions from the Iranians main project, the nuclear bomb. And what Netanyahu failed to understand, and this is his strategic failure, was that at the very same time Iran developed two strategic threats on Israel, the nuclear program and the militias. The proxies, the ring of fire. Now let's say that Netanyahu would really deal efficiently with October 7 and the attack would be prevented or I don't know, only 20 casualties. So Hamas would still be there with the tunnels, RPGs, 40,000 terrorists, air force, naval force, etc. And Netanyahu wouldn't have the power and the legitimacy to actually take care of it. In Netanyahu's book that was out in 2022, he says he takes pride for not occupying Gaza. So Netanyahu's way of thinking was that Gaza is just an arm of the octopus. He didn't understand that this arm can actually destroy Israel too.
- [18:49]
Dan Sin
You go to great lengths in the book to, as you spoke about a few moments ago about getting your readers to understand Israeli politics, I like to use your line how the locals think of it because I find in the US we have a tendency to compare the actions of an Israeli Prime Minister to the actions actions of an American president. Like for instance, you know, I get into these debates with people when I say people like Smoltrich and Ben Vere are not as influential, their influence is not as outsized as you would think they are over here. Like meaning when I listen to people who are following events in Israel, they say, oh well, Ben Ver and Smoltric won't allow Netanyahu to do this or they won't allow him to do that. And their influence is not as outsized as you think it is. And they say, well, small is the finance Minister. That's like the Secretary of Treasury. The Secretary of Treasury is one of the three most important cabinet positions. I constantly hear this by the way, or if there's some obscure minister in the government who has like the minister of heritage or something that says we should do this to Gaza or we should do that to Gaza, and people over here say a minister in the government as though it's like a cabinet secretary in a presidential administration, we constantly hear these comparisons. And you, I think in your book are trying to dispel these very one dimensional attempts at analogizing Israeli politics and American politics or Israeli prime ministers and American presidents.
- [20:08]
Amit Segal
So in order to understand it, one has to know that there are three terms that do not exist in Hebrew one is constituency. Israelis are not elected in a specific place. Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the fifth, I don't know, district of Haifa. Okay. You are elected by a nation.
- [20:26]
Dan Sin
So I just want our listeners to understand this. Israelis don't have any geographic or jurisdiction.
- [20:34]
Amit Segal
Exactly.
- [20:35]
Dan Sin
That is represented in the national government. That is to say, as a mediator, I just want people to understand. So if you live in Tel Aviv and you vote in the national elections, like in the uk, you live in a constituency and you vote for an MP that represents you in that. In the US you vote for a member of Congress from your congressional district. There's nothing like that in Israel. If you're sitting there in some suburb of Tel Aviv, there's no one in the Knesset that represents your geography. Sorry, I just want our listeners to understand what you're talking to us, which.
- [21:05]
Amit Segal
Makes Israel politics to deal way more with security and policy and diplomacy rather than, you know, the pork barrel policy, like in the States. Right.
- [21:15]
Dan Sin
Why isn't there a bridge in my neighborhood? You know? Right.
- [21:18]
Amit Segal
That's why Israelis have the sentiment of being detached from their politicians way more than Americans feel. Although Israel is a tiny, tiny country and the US is has, I don't know, six time zones. Okay. This is one thing. Because they have no one in Jerusalem to call to if their son has a problem in the kindergarten. This is one thing. Second is that we lack fixed terms. When a US President is elected, they are elected for four years. They know exactly the date, the time and the place in which they are going to be replaced by their successor in Israel. It can happen every Monday at 4pm at a no confidence vote. And here's the thing you described about Smotrich and Benavir. Netanyahu is way stronger as a prime minister than Trump, Obama or Biden as president. He really rules, he really runs every part of the country. However, this power is very limited because it can end every time. Trump is way more limited. But he knows that he, meaning it.
- [22:22]
Dan Sin
Can end any week. Any week, Any week. When Netanyahu starts his week any Monday.
- [22:25]
Amit Segal
At 4:00pm that's why Netanyahu doesn't. I mean, Netanyahu has all the power in the world to actually have a deal that ends the war or to pass 2 billion shekels to something, or to sign a peace treaty with Turkey. But till Monday at 4pm is the strongest place around. But at 4pm and fall and his coalition might collapse. That's why he must always bear in mind those two elements, the international one and the tiny little know how things of how to run a government. That's why Smotrich is the weakest among all the treasury ministers on earth. Yet a very important ingredient in Netanyahu's coalition. Okay, and the third ingredient is accountability. Accountability. You know, there is no word in Hebrew for accountability. And the joke says that in Israel, you never take it, so you don't need this word. Why? Because.
- [23:23]
Dan Sin
Is that true, by the way? There's no Hebrew word?
- [23:26]
Amit Segal
Yes. Wow, that's amazing. No word accountability. You say accountability and no one uses it. Why? Because if you are President Trump, you are tested against, I don't know, a few dozens of pledges you have made before you got elected. In Israel, you can make as many pledges as you want to destroy Hamas, like Netanyahu said in 2009. And then when elections come to say, I really wanted to do it, but I'm not the only ruler in my coalition. I had to. I mean, I had five, six, seven parties that wanted their things, so I couldn't dismantle Hamas, reducing the taxes, etc. And that's why Israeli politics might be quite frustrating for the citizens.
- [24:08]
Dan Sin
We also have a tendency in the US to think about how the right versus left is organized ideologically, politically, structurally. And then we also tried to, like, blast that onto Israel, like project that onto Israel. So we say Likuda, the Republicans, you know, Lapid's party are the Democrats and. Or whatever. I mean, we tend to just have a very similar, you know, Smaltrich and Ben Vere are the extreme version of Republic. They're the Maga, quote, unquote, the extreme end of Maga or the extreme end of the religious right. In the US we have this tendency to try to just apply, in a, to me, a very simplistic way. And I think, as you argue incorrect way, our system onto yours. So can you talk a little about that?
- [24:48]
Steve Witkoff / Jared Kushner
Yeah.
- [24:49]
Amit Segal
In the US it's the economy, stupid, right? Like it was said in 1992 on the campaign trail of Clinton, Bill Clinton. In Israel, it's the security, I would say even the fear. The number one issue when it comes to Israel's policy, Israel's politics, is fear. And I'll explain it. The most horrific fact about Israel is that no matter where you are in Israel right now, in Jerusalem, like myself, in Haifa, in Eilat, in the Aravah, far from civilization, you are always 80 minutes, the most, 50 miles, the most from a terrorist with a rifle, a knife, an RPG that wants to kill you. Specifically. Now, this experience multiplied by the Holocaust Experience might explain why the number one question for Israel is, is who is going to take care of this country? Because Israelis have seen over the last 50 years that it was twice one decision, far from not existing one decision. And that's why the number one consideration for each and every Israeli voter is who is going to take care of security. That's why in my opinion, after Yom Kippur there hasn't been a female prime minister. Because you want military experience. And women in the army till lately didn't have even the chance to be chief senior officers. This is one thing. Second is that economy is off the table. One of the things that Americans have hard times to understand is that the most communist, almost Marxist parties in the Western world are part of the Israeli right wing Shas and Yaduta Torah, the ultra orthodox parties that support higher taxation.
- [26:40]
Dan Sin
Food stamps, the welfare state. They're the biggest champions of the welfare state.
- [26:43]
Amit Segal
Exactly. They supported each and every taxation over the last 40 years. And on the other hand, the leaders of liberal free market parties are part of the Israeli left.
- [26:56]
Dan Sin
I'll give you one example. I've written a lot about the startup scene in Israel. The tech scene in Israel is people view them as left. Obviously they've been in the forefront of many of the secular liberal activist campaigns over the last number of years. And yet this is an economy in a sector or part of the Israeli economy in a sector that is lightly taxed, lightly regulated, no central kind of planning or organization from the Israeli government, from the national Israeli government. Whereas other parts of the economy are highly taxed, highly regulated and highly centralized. So it's confusing to people. It's like, like these people should be free market activists, which means in the US you'd put them on the right, but in Israel they're on the left.
- [27:37]
Amit Segal
I'll give you two examples. One, the Doge department in Israel would have hard times to take budgets from the left, but it would find annoying budgets going mainly to the ultra orthodox parties. And the second thing, there was a joke in Israel that it's the only old complaint by one leftist minister in the 90s that Israel is the only place in which your leftist position is measured not by the distance from Che Guevara, but from Yasser Arafat. So Israel's most leftist party emirates consisted of one ingredient that was highly capitalist, Shinoi. So this is the only place political correspondence doesn't have to understand what interest rate is. For instance, when I studied in the UK, I covered the UK election in 2010 for my channel and I was shocked to see that political correspondents and analysts really analyze the economy manifesto, because in Israel, nobody cares about the economy manifesto. No one deals with it. You can deal with, I don't know, borders, terrorist organization, withdrawal, West bank, etc. But no one cares about economy. So it's crucial for Israelis to understand it. And Netanyahu has mastered Israeli politics for the last two generations because he understood, he combined two elements. One is the politics of security and fear with something which was quite hidden till he got there. And this is the politics of Judaism. He understood that it's not only about the Palestinians. This is the negative ingredient of politics being against Palestinian statehood, against Palestinian tourism. But the positive ingredient was your affiliation to Judaism. You don't have to go to a synagogue, but the synagogue you don't go to is Orthodox. So I would say, if you want to know, for instance, but don't you.
- [29:35]
Dan Sin
Think Menachem Begin was. Menachem Begin also understood the politics of Jerusalem?
- [29:39]
Amit Segal
Menachem Begin invented it. Yes, he invented it. But he was the first Prime Minister to go to the Kotel, to the Western Wall, the day after he got elected. I know it sounds crazy, but till then there wasn't a single Israeli Prime Minister in the Western Wall. He was the first one.
- [29:53]
Dan Sin
That blows my mind. Whereas now we just assume every time a Prime minister gets elected, this is what they do.
- [29:59]
Amit Segal
He was the first to put a yamulka while, you know, while giving a speech. And the second thing is that Netanyahu took what for beginning it was from his kishkes, from his guts. Netanyahu shaped it.
- [30:11]
Dan Sin
Yeah. He was a genuinely, genuinely religious man.
- [30:15]
Amit Segal
Exactly. It's funny that Netanyahu, he's one of the most secular prime ministers in Israel's history. I don't think he keeps kosher. And he doesn't believe in God, for instance, although he tries to hide it nonetheless, and against the theory of politics of identity, people vote for him because they understand that he's the big organizer of the three tribes, the black keepers, six children on average per family. The Ultra Orthodox, the Knitted keeper, the National Orthodox, 4.1 children per family. And the biggest tribe in Israel, the keeper in the pocket. Those who take it for out for, I don't know, for funerals, etc.
- [30:59]
Dan Sin
Funerals and weddings.
- [31:00]
Amit Segal
Yes, 3.25 children per family. Now, the reason, in my opinion, people in the center left detest Netanyahu, does not emanate from his identity. Neither he's a woman or he's a child, but because he is the melting pot of those three tribes. He created it. It was a coalition of interest in begins terms, and it became a political unified movement in Netanyahu's terms. This is what made the emotion so hectic when it comes to Netanyahu itself, because you can't defeat these demographics.
- [31:39]
Dan Sin
I mean, you just dropped something there that you kind of move past, and there's no way I can let you move past it. You said that Netanyahu does not believe in God. How do you know that?
- [31:48]
Amit Segal
Two former friends of Netanyahu said that he told them he confessed to be atheist. One second, that he saw someone with tefillin, and he said, it's so weird or something like this. And the third thing, that in an interview to a journalist that you probably know, Yair Lapid, 20 years ago, when Yair Lapid was the host of a very popular TV show in Israel.
- [32:11]
Dan Sin
TV show? Yeah.
- [32:12]
Amit Segal
Lapid asked Netanyahu, do you believe in God? So he said, I believe in something bigger than us. And then Lapid asked, do you believe in a Jewish God? He said, I need to think about it. That's what Netanyahu himself said.
- [32:25]
Dan Sin
Wow. Okay, my last question for you, and this could be its own conversation, because there's so much to cover, but I'll let you choose which part of it you want to cover. Look, the most riveting part of the book to me is just all these unbelievable nuggets about different Israeli prime ministers that you have collected over the years through your own reporting or through your research. That is just. If you're a political and history junkie like I am, this is just, like, amazing material about all these different Israeli prime ministers. And some of them we never, you know, we just don't focus on. Like, we talk about Netanyahu because he's so dominant. We talk about Begin because he was so dominant and revolutionary, really, in his time. We talk about Goldman because of her, you know, her historical failure, the failure that happened on her watch. We talked about all these, obviously. We talked about Ben Gurion. So if you were to just like, rattle off what you think were the most interesting points in your own work on this book about these different Israeli prime ministers, which ones would you point to?
- [33:24]
Amit Segal
To an Israeli prime minister?
- [33:25]
Dan Sin
The ones that. Let me put it this way. Let me ask the question a little differently. Meaning not the ones that aren't obvious. You know what I mean? Like, the ones that there are. Like, when you talk about Begin or Bibi or Meir or, you know, we can go through the list There are the obvious parts of their story and their histories, and then there are the ones that even for the reader. There were a lot for me that were surprising. What were surprising or interesting for you?
- [33:47]
Amit Segal
I would choose two. Levi Eshkol and Yitzhak Shamir, one from the left, one from the right.
- [33:53]
Dan Sin
So Eshkol, prime minister during the Six Day War, start with him.
- [33:56]
Amit Segal
Yeah, so both of them, the mutual things that they came after. Israel's most popular prime ministers, the founding Fathers, David Ben Gurion, from the left, was succeeded by Levi Eshkol and Menachem Begin, I mean, the inspiring leader was substituted, was replaced by Trax Shamir, that didn't speak in the phone because he was under the impression that the Brits are still listening. He was the former leader and Shamir was what, 83 in 83 till 1992.
- [34:21]
Dan Sin
Right, right, right.
- [34:22]
Amit Segal
However, those two leaders who were quite unpopular at the time, are two of the most successful prime ministers. And it emanates, in my opinion, because of their decision to have a unity government. Begin and Ben Gurion were divisive leaders. Ben Gurion called Begin, for instance, a little Hitler, and Begin replied with a big maniac, okay? That was the language back then for those who missed those calm days in the past. Ben Gurion ordered to spy on Begin, and Begin ordered his supporters to throw stones at the Knesset in an event in the unforgettable date, January 6th, 1952. This was our January 6th.
- [35:07]
Dan Sin
And this was to protest the German reparations plan with West Germany, because Israel was going to receive reparations from West Germany for the Holocaust. And Begin thought he was strongly opposed to it because this was almost like giving West Germany like a pass, and it diminished the legacy of the Holocaust. So there was a big protest In Jerusalem, like 10 or 15,000 people, which back then, as a percentage of its population, was bigger, by the way, I think, than the protests we're seeing now in Israel. And he told the protesters, storm the Knesset and disrupt the debate. And it turned violent.
- [35:42]
Amit Segal
Each and every window at the Knesset was shattered this very day. And Begin was not allowed to enter the Knesset for three months. However, Levi Eshkol established the first unity government prior to the Six Day War with Menachem Begin. And Shamir insisted on having a unity government with the Labour Party, Shimon Peres, although he detested Peres personally. And it helped because Eshkol won the Six Day War decisively. Shamir brought 1 million immigrants from Russia, from the former USSR and ended the Lebanon War. Defeated the inflation that was. Its rate was 450% monthly. The Israeli economy was on the verge of collapse. And they were, in my opinion, they're the two best prime one of the two. Some of the two best prime ministers in Israel's history. However, it always ends with the tragedy. Because from what I saw, I knew personally seven prime ministers out of the 14. Two things mutual. One, they were always sure that they are to rule forever. And second, that they must rule forever because otherwise the country is going to collapse. Each of them had an explanation why the country would not survive. Another prime minister, and there is a nice phrase that I once learned from Yuval Stein. It's the former treasury minister that said, it's from a play by Samuel Beckett, that no matter how beautiful the play, it will always end with a tragedy. This is the case for every prime minister. Ben Gurion was under the impression that people will want him every time. So he resigned seven times, but for the seventh time, no one called him back. And he became pathetic. And Levi Eshkel died of a heart attack because he was heartbroken for not getting the credit for the Six Day War. And Olmert went to jail and Sharon got a stroke and Rabin was assassinated. And Peres was defeated twice. And Barak lost the election and so did Shamir in Bennett found one day that he no longer has a coalition. And Begin, by the way, Begin left office and didn't step out of his door till he died nine years later. And it won't be different with Benjamin Netanyahu. As the son of a historian, I guess he's aware of it. Aware, but can't resist it.
- [38:05]
Dan Sin
Wow. All right, Amit, I hope this leaves our listeners one click away on Amazon from ordering the book. I cannot emphasize enough, really. I'm emphatic here that this is. I don't say this about every book about Israel. And again, I read a lot of books about Israel. People need to read this book. You can order it now. It's available on Amazon now. You can pre order it. It comes out in a few days. I highly, highly, highly recommend it. Amit, thanks for doing this. And we'll post it. We'll post the book to the show Notes.
- [38:32]
Amit Segal
All right, thank you so much, Dan.
- [38:42]
Dan Sin
Call Me Back is produced and edited by Ilan Benatar. ARC Media's executive producer is Adam James Levin Aretti. Sound and video editing by Martin Juergo and Marian Calis Burgos. Our director of operations, Maya Rakoff. Research by Gabe Silverstein. Our music was composed by Yuval Semo. Until next time. I'm your host, Dan Sin.