Tom Segev Interview (2007): Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
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The audience has to buy the book because we can't do justice to the power of the narrative, but as you go through these documents and recount these meetings some interesting things emerge, and that is the role of personality on the one hand and politics on the other. Prime Minister Eshkol appears weak in a radio broadcast. Dayan says, "Let's not do X," and then the next day he does it. So, it's an extraordinary mosaic of personalities.
It's about politics, it's about ego, it's about politics and ego again, very much of it. Yes, very much of it. And yes, it is a complicated story but it's very dramatic because eventually the Prime Minister and Minister of Defense has to give up, Eshkol has to give up the Ministry of Defense. He's actually ...
He had two portfolios.
Yes, and he's forced to give it up, again under public pressure, because the public feels this is a weak man. One of the interesting things is that many Israelis want David Ben-Gurion to return. Ben-Gurion was a man who saved everything, every piece of paper, so when you go to the archive of David Ben-Gurion you see all these hundreds and hundreds of letters which people wrote to him saying, "Please, please come back and lead us to war." The interesting thing is, he was not for the war. He thought we should avoid the war because he felt that the army was not strong enough and because he felt that the war should only be fought in cooperation with other countries, like in '56 [with] France and Britain; in this case, let's say, America. He never revealed to the public that he was against the war, so this shows you how this psychology is based on wrong assumptions, wrong information. He didn't want the war but everybody said, "Come back and lead us to war."
The man who replaced Eshkol was Moshe Dayan, very, very admired general, admired figure, a very egocentric man and with no loyalties at all.
To himself.
Hardly for himself, but not to the law, not to a man, not to a woman, not to friends, not to values -- he's a very, very [impetuous] man -- unexpected, you never know what he's [going to do], and it's very, very difficult to explain him and understand him. I'm saying that he was not necessarily loyal to himself because he very often did things which were harmful to himself, and he never really trusted himself. It's not a coincidence that he never became number one in Israel. He can function only as a number two of somebody else, like Ben-Gurion or later Begin.
A very important issue raised by your account of decision making, and the decision to go to war, and the way the war was fought, is the question of rationality in decision making. You make very clear that Israel is a small society and that there were discussions bringing in intellectuals, and officials of the government, and the military, working out scenarios and [their] implications. And on this very rational level, the arguments were very clear, very lucid about the negative implications.
And very convincing.
... and very convincing about what the long-term costs would be, for example, for seizing the West Bank. Talk a little about that, because it tells us something about limits to rationality.
Oh, absolutely. Well, we've already covered the war with Egypt, which as I understand it was an irrational decision, comes out of fear. But for Jordan this is not true, because by the time the war with Jordan began there was no longer a danger of Israel being exterminated by the Egyptians, because the Egyptians had been defeated the day before. So, you need another explanation.
What you are referring to is a meeting that took place about half a year before the war, in around January of 1966, [including] highest representatives of the Mossad, which is Israel's secret service, the Israeli army intelligence, and the Foreign Office. They all sit together and they do something which Israelis don't do very often: they think. Under what circumstances may it be necessary to take the West Bank? If King Hussein loses his throne, if Iraq invades Jordan, if Jordan moves too many tanks to the West, it may be necessary to invade the West Bank. They also think of what to do with the West Bank, once they have taken it. They may make it into an independent Palestinian state, they may annex it, they may [make] it autonomous -- all kinds of scenarios.
The bottom line is that it is not in the interest of Israel to take the West Bank because of the population, because King Hussein is doing everything he can to diffuse Palestinian nationalism. He encourages Palestinians to move out of the West Bank to the East Bank, and from there to other countries. And so, if Israel invades the West Bank it will only encourage Palestinian nationalism; it is not in our interest to do that. It is in our interest to avoid the possibility [of] occupation of the West Bank. It is not in our interest today.
Once they sit together and have to make the decision, all this is forgotten. It doesn't come from the head anymore. It comes from the guts, from the heart. "Wow, it's possible to take East Jerusalem." And it's so interesting, when you look at the meeting where they actually decide to take East Jerusalem, no position papers, no scenarios, no experts, not even legal experts. This is a big legal thing. All of a sudden Israel will be in charge of the entire holy places of the Christian world, to say nothing about the Muslims, but all these churches, what will we do with them? Nothing. And the major question which never comes up is why is it in the interest of Israel to rule East Jerusalem. "Why is it in my interest?" Why don't they ask that? Because it's "self-evident." It comes from the heart, not from the head. It's completely irrational.
Now at this point you or somebody else would say, "But didn't the Jordanians attack first?" Yes, they did. So, hit them, defeat them, humiliate them, but why take the West Bank? You know rationally that it is not in our interest to take the West Bank. Why do it, then? Because it's about holy land, it's about holy places, it's about the heart. It's not about rationality anymore. So, this is really interesting, how we got stuck there, and this is also why it is so difficult afterwards to change, because having taken East Jerusalem, the western wall, the holy places -- no way you can give it back. So, by occupying East Jerusalem they have actually made the decision, perhaps not willingly, perhaps not knowingly, not in full conscience, but what it actually means that they have decided that there would be no peace, because there cannot be peace as long as Israel holds East Jerusalem, and Israel cannot give up East Jerusalem, and so that is why 1967 is such a long year and is lasting until today.
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