We remember Israel’s first and only female prime minister for the failures of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. October 7th made me reconsider what leadership looks like when every option is terrible.
Maybe Teddy Roosevelt’s most famous speech included this:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
I think it is ironic that the speech was given in Paris in 1910, but maybe TR understood the French well and it was not ironic at all.
Connecting the dots. In 1948 Golda Meir as the 1st Israeli ambassador visited Moscow’s Choral Synagogue on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. She was met by a crowd of 50 th Jews. For Stalin this embodied Jewish nationalism, everything that stands in opposition to what communism is, and Jews became unsafe in Russia, were attacked next.
In 1951 he executes by a firing squad in Moscow’s infamous Lubyanka prison 13 renowned Jewish writers, artists, journalists and scientists after they were tortured for false confessions. In 1953 he plotted to murder Jewish doctors. Stalin died before they were executed, and the plot was exposed. The PLO Charter was drafted in Moscow in 1964. Soviet Russia & Communist bloc countries worked with PLO to redefine the Palestinian cause by calling it anti-imperialism, a cause that appealed to the Left and the Islamic world.
The diabolical target of too many madmen in history has been the Jews or the idea of Jewish people being a scapegoat for all of the ills of society. It’s warped.
It is not the same to be a “Monday-morning quarterback” and second-guess decisions made by others after the fact with the benefit of hindsight as being in the game.
Excellent, nonjudgmental lookback at history relating to current events .
I fully agree that one needs cojones (beitzim) to serve as PM in Israel, even more so in a war or peace making.. Unfortunately, the political system in Israel tends to castrate leaders with "beitzim" .
I was Army stationed in Mainz, West Germany in '73 and well remember the aircraft flying out of Rhein-Main with tanks on their way to Israel. Agree with the author and hindsight is 20/20 but foresight isn't.
Until he decided to stop unilaterally for no reason and spend four months and then more alternatively threatening them and demanding they agree to a deal (which the whole world knows they will never honor.)
Thank you Dory .. ‘The person sitting in the prime minister’s office does not get the history book first’ .. as the saying goes, ‘hindsight is 20/20 vision’.
"Which brings me to Benjamin Netanyahu. October 7th happened while he was prime minister. That fact is not going anywhere. But responsibility and a complete historical explanation are not the same thing. We still do not know everything that was warned, dismissed, assumed, or misunderstood in the years and hours before the attack."
That is because, in stark contrast to Golda, who established the Agranat commission just six week after October 6, 1973, while Israeli troops were still in Syria and across the Suez canal in Egypt, Netanyahu has blocked the establishment of a commission of inquiry for the last three years. To the point that former chief of staff Halevy had to appoint internal IDF commissions of inquiry, in spite of the bad look of the army investigating itself, because learning from its mistakes - and taking personal responsibility, including tendering your resignation - is so central to the IDF ethos. But less so, apparently, to Israel's current ruling coalition's ethos.
So, indeed, not all leaders are blessed with Golda's leadership qualities.
You mean, only reporting the good news from the Holy Land and ignore the bad? So that everyone outside the Holy Land who only get their news from your horseback-distributed stenciled newsletter will believe that all our laundry is always clean, and that anyone who says that there are problems in the Holy Land is lying?
Well, that's a pretty unsophisticated approach to discussing the news, and would have been deemed so already 200 years ago.
In the present, your enemies are on the outside too just waiting to exploit the sorting and airing of your dirty laundry.
There is a very good argument for waiting until the war or battle is done before embarking on an overall inquiry. Other inquiries take place internally, and are necessary. The right of the public and the world outside to know all the tiniest details of those inquiries, though, is zero. You have the right to demand to know everything now. But there is a war going on, and others have the right, the duty even, to ignore and deny your demands.
Whoever holds the office of Prime Minister doesn't have Presidential or Monarchical powers, in spite of how Western media like to frame it. It's not incumbent on a future Prime Minister to follow whatever the current Prime Minister deems to be the right course.
What outside and what inside ... we're all inside the internet, for heaven's sake.
The OP wrote about the leadership qualities of various Israeli leaders. So arguing that a current leader isn't up to snuff isn't "airing dirty laundry", it is reacting to the OP. How is that even controversial?
The bottom line is a bit counter to your premise: Golda's batting average was among the best for any Israeli PM. She is not remembered just for the '73 war difficulties, but for far more. However, today's conflicts facing democracies fighting Evil defy easy resolution...
Meir resigned because that is what a prime minister is supposed to do when a catastrophe or a scandal or something else happens and they are the "decider." Netanyahu upended that. He hasn't even allowed an official inquiry. He has done Israel.an enormous amount of good in his career but I am afraid his legacy is going to be not just October 7 but a failure to take responsibility for it.
Thank you to everyone who read, commented and shared your thoughts on this one. I really appreciate the thoughtful conversation. And thank you to Future of Jewish for publishing it and giving my work a home. 🥚🥚
Maybe Teddy Roosevelt’s most famous speech included this:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
I think it is ironic that the speech was given in Paris in 1910, but maybe TR understood the French well and it was not ironic at all.
Connecting the dots. In 1948 Golda Meir as the 1st Israeli ambassador visited Moscow’s Choral Synagogue on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. She was met by a crowd of 50 th Jews. For Stalin this embodied Jewish nationalism, everything that stands in opposition to what communism is, and Jews became unsafe in Russia, were attacked next.
In 1951 he executes by a firing squad in Moscow’s infamous Lubyanka prison 13 renowned Jewish writers, artists, journalists and scientists after they were tortured for false confessions. In 1953 he plotted to murder Jewish doctors. Stalin died before they were executed, and the plot was exposed. The PLO Charter was drafted in Moscow in 1964. Soviet Russia & Communist bloc countries worked with PLO to redefine the Palestinian cause by calling it anti-imperialism, a cause that appealed to the Left and the Islamic world.
The diabolical target of too many madmen in history has been the Jews or the idea of Jewish people being a scapegoat for all of the ills of society. It’s warped.
From Tsars to Hitler to Macron and to the European cowards who sold-out their countries to the enemy.
It is not the same to be a “Monday-morning quarterback” and second-guess decisions made by others after the fact with the benefit of hindsight as being in the game.
Excellent, nonjudgmental lookback at history relating to current events .
I fully agree that one needs cojones (beitzim) to serve as PM in Israel, even more so in a war or peace making.. Unfortunately, the political system in Israel tends to castrate leaders with "beitzim" .
I was Army stationed in Mainz, West Germany in '73 and well remember the aircraft flying out of Rhein-Main with tanks on their way to Israel. Agree with the author and hindsight is 20/20 but foresight isn't.
Trump has eggs, too….
They called him taco and he showed them his cojones in return. And for that I shall be forever grateful.
Until he decided to stop unilaterally for no reason and spend four months and then more alternatively threatening them and demanding they agree to a deal (which the whole world knows they will never honor.)
Valid point also! We could be freeing Iran instead of waiting for people to vote in midterms here and quaking about $6 gas.
Thank you Dory .. ‘The person sitting in the prime minister’s office does not get the history book first’ .. as the saying goes, ‘hindsight is 20/20 vision’.
"Which brings me to Benjamin Netanyahu. October 7th happened while he was prime minister. That fact is not going anywhere. But responsibility and a complete historical explanation are not the same thing. We still do not know everything that was warned, dismissed, assumed, or misunderstood in the years and hours before the attack."
That is because, in stark contrast to Golda, who established the Agranat commission just six week after October 6, 1973, while Israeli troops were still in Syria and across the Suez canal in Egypt, Netanyahu has blocked the establishment of a commission of inquiry for the last three years. To the point that former chief of staff Halevy had to appoint internal IDF commissions of inquiry, in spite of the bad look of the army investigating itself, because learning from its mistakes - and taking personal responsibility, including tendering your resignation - is so central to the IDF ethos. But less so, apparently, to Israel's current ruling coalition's ethos.
So, indeed, not all leaders are blessed with Golda's leadership qualities.
May I suggest that we do our dirty laundry at home!
You mean, only reporting the good news from the Holy Land and ignore the bad? So that everyone outside the Holy Land who only get their news from your horseback-distributed stenciled newsletter will believe that all our laundry is always clean, and that anyone who says that there are problems in the Holy Land is lying?
Well, that's a pretty unsophisticated approach to discussing the news, and would have been deemed so already 200 years ago.
200 years ago was another universe. "News" as it exists today wasn't a thing.
https://share.google/aimode/mDaOQTv8R8UAg3JeR
In the present, your enemies are on the outside too just waiting to exploit the sorting and airing of your dirty laundry.
There is a very good argument for waiting until the war or battle is done before embarking on an overall inquiry. Other inquiries take place internally, and are necessary. The right of the public and the world outside to know all the tiniest details of those inquiries, though, is zero. You have the right to demand to know everything now. But there is a war going on, and others have the right, the duty even, to ignore and deny your demands.
Whoever holds the office of Prime Minister doesn't have Presidential or Monarchical powers, in spite of how Western media like to frame it. It's not incumbent on a future Prime Minister to follow whatever the current Prime Minister deems to be the right course.
What outside and what inside ... we're all inside the internet, for heaven's sake.
The OP wrote about the leadership qualities of various Israeli leaders. So arguing that a current leader isn't up to snuff isn't "airing dirty laundry", it is reacting to the OP. How is that even controversial?
The bottom line is a bit counter to your premise: Golda's batting average was among the best for any Israeli PM. She is not remembered just for the '73 war difficulties, but for far more. However, today's conflicts facing democracies fighting Evil defy easy resolution...
Meir resigned because that is what a prime minister is supposed to do when a catastrophe or a scandal or something else happens and they are the "decider." Netanyahu upended that. He hasn't even allowed an official inquiry. He has done Israel.an enormous amount of good in his career but I am afraid his legacy is going to be not just October 7 but a failure to take responsibility for it.
Thank you to everyone who read, commented and shared your thoughts on this one. I really appreciate the thoughtful conversation. And thank you to Future of Jewish for publishing it and giving my work a home. 🥚🥚