All language subtitles for PBS.Israel.A.Twice.Promised.Land.PDTV.x265.AAC.MVGroup.org-en

On November 29th, 1947,
the 128th General Assembly

of the United Nations
opened in New York.

The Partition Plan for Palestine
into two states-- one Jewish,

one Arab-- was on
the day's agenda.

For the resolution to
pass, 2/3 of the 56

represented countries
had to vote for it.

Most of the Jewish
agency delegates

had returned to
Palestine, has no one

believed the resolution
would pass the vote.

Abba Eban, the liaison officer
to the United Nations Committee

on Palestine was the only
one who decided to stay.

He believes the
situation could change.

"We took a map of the world.

We cut it up.

And we went for the
delegations who were there.

But in spite of all
our efforts, we still

needed three to four votes.

We only had a few hours
to change the situation.

Telegrams went all
over the world.

Influential people were
woken up at midnight

for what seemed to be
impossible missions.

Everyone used their
influence great or small

in a desperate attempt to
tip the scales in our favor,"

said Abba Eban.

"We knew that France
wanted to abstain.

I convinced Chaim Weizmann,
the head of our delegation,

to contact Leon Blum, prime
minister of the popular front

and deputy head of the French
government in 1937 and '38.

They had known each
other for a while.

He sent a telegram to Blum
which ended with these words,

"can France abstain,
be absent at a moment

that no one will forget and
will be forever engraved

in human memory?"

We will proceed the whole goal.

You all know how to vote.

Those who are in
favor will say yes.

Those who are against,
you will say no.

And the abstainers always
this, they know what to say.

And we will start it now.

Alarmed by the rise
of anti-Semitism

throughout Europe, and
profoundly affected

by the Dreyfus affair, the young
Austro-Hungarian journalist

Theodor Herzl published
the Jewish State in 1896.

In it, he wrote,
"if you want it,

it doesn't have to be a dream.

Just give us full autonomy
over a sufficient piece of land

that would meet the
needs of our people

and we'll take
care of the rest."

Herzl hoped that the moment the
Jewish people had a country,

they would be a
people like any other.

That everyone would
treat them the same

they treated any other people
and anti-Semitism would

decrease a bit by bit.

But he also wrote
that anti-Semitism

was so deep, so
entrenched for so long

that it was possible this
hope would never come true.

And he could see
no other solution

to anti-Semitism and exile
but to create a state

and live there.

A year later, the first
Congress of the Zionist Movement

was held in Basel with
the goal of creating

a home for the Jewish people.

One of the participants
remembers the meetings

conclusion.

Theodor Herzl was the
secular black-bearded messiah

who would lead us to
the promised land.

The excitement rose to engulf
the public in the balcony.

Throughout the room, you
could hear people shouting,

"next year in Jerusalem."

A year later,
Herzl went to Egypt

for the first and last
time, then to Palestine.

In his diary, he wrote,
"Jerusalem is magnificent.

The city of David in the
moonlight is impressive."

It's a marvelous country,
he describes, of course.

Herzl describes the
country he imagined,

a very liberal country, very
European, very sophisticated,

with excellent relations between
their different communities

and the different
parts of society.

When Herzl presented his Zionist
project, all the conservative,

reformers, orthodox, rabbis
were against Zionism.

This was the end of the 19th,
century beginning of the 20th.

All of them.

They perceived it as a sin,
arguing that the diaspora was

a divine punishment.

And only God could allow Jewish
people to return to sacred land

with the coming of the Messiah.

Herzl said you must separate
religion from the state.

We shouldn't let
the rabbis lead us.

They should stay
in the synagogues

but they shouldn't
tell us what to do.

Zionism represented
the desire to be

freed from the
shackles of religion

and create a new human
and a new society

in the country of Israel.

During the 7th International
Zionist Congress in 1905,

Palestine was chosen to
establish a Jewish homeland

after considering
Uganda and Argentina.

It was the first Congress after
Herzl's death a year earlier.

One of the members,
Yitzhak Epstein,

addressed The Tribune, "we
forgot one small detail.

On that land we love,
there is an entire nation

that has been living
on it for centuries

and has never
considered leaving it.

We are making a serious
psychological mistake."

The president of the Union
of British synagogues

had written to Herzl,
"I tremble at the idea

of founding a tiny,
tiny Jewish state that

would become a ghetto."

let

At the start of the
century, the population

consisted of tens
of thousands of Jews

and about 500,000 Arabs.

The Jews did not work the land.

Most of them were
altered orthodox Jews

who lived on foreign
donations or were shopkeepers.

They had small shops, that's it.

It was a small community, very
religious, strong believers,

many in Jerusalem or other
places like Hebron and Safed.

There was no difference
between the Jews and the Arabs.

In Jerusalem, for
example, land and houses

were sold all the time,
and were not an issue.

My parents who were
living in Jaffa

had many friends amongst
Jewish population

of mandate Palestine.

These things at that
time were natural.

There were not anything unusual.

I don't think there's
any reason to deny.

It's obvious that Jews
have lived on this land

and that they had a culture here
that they had their roots here.

The pogroms in Russia
increased the massive migration

of Jewish people, especially
to the United States.

A handful of young Zionist
students from Ukraine

decided to settle in Palestine.

One group arrived, bought
land in Rishon LeZion

and stayed there.

One of the strangest things
is that the Jews have

said from the start
that this is their land,

and the Arabs heard that.

In fact, the moment the
first Jew came here,

the Arab-Jewish conflict began.

From that viewpoint,
the seeds of conflict

were there right from the start.

Young idealists came
to farm the land.

They tell themselves they would
create an ideal settlement

in Israel.

We have texts from
1987-1908 that state

this situation is
an enormous project

to oust us from our own land.

The working conditions
in this land,

in places where they were
far from everything led them

to create a way of living
where everything was shared.

And that way of living then
led to the kibbutz concept.

The first kibbutz, a
collectivist village,

was established in
Palestine in 1909.

The founders were young
idealists from Europe

who wanted to create a new state
by finding a new way of life.

My grandfather worked in the
mud to help dry up the marshes.

My grandmother broke
rocks with a hammer.

They lived under a
tent for five years.

The rest of the world considered
Palestine to be an abandoned,

entirely uninhabited territory.

It was a desolate country
filled with deserts and marshes.

You know that famous
saying, the bride

was beautiful but
was already married,

but they just couldn't bring
themselves to admit that.

So they invented a slogan
to justify and legitimize

the project of their
foreign community arriving

to settle in the local
population's homeland.

And they told the whole world
the famous slogan of a land

without people for a
people without a land.

It was the worst life.

They claimed they transformed
this land into a paradise.

You know, it was totally desert.

It's a good thing we showed up.

That story of a desert land
dates from the 19th century.

It dates from the time the
European powers started

to describe the sacred land
as a devastated land that

had to be brought back
to life at any cost.

The Muslims weren't mistrustful
before the Zionists arrived.

They never imagined that one day
this relationship between Jews

and Arabs would change into
something that the Palestinians

would pay so dearly.

Jewish settlement is partly
responsible for deteriorating

relations between
Arabs and Jews,

given that the
settlement had decided it

wouldn't use local Arab labor.

Under the impetus of
the Zionist movement,

more and more Jewish people
bought land in Palestine.

Between 1908 and 1913, 11 new
Jewish colonies were created.

During this period,
the first Zions

of Arab opposition to the
Zionist movement appeared.

Some Arabs protested against the
sale of lands to Jewish people.

All the Palestinian
Arabs sell property

to the Jewish arrivals.

There are deeds of sale.

Our relationship changed.

People started to sense that
there was a problem here.

How could an Arab live
in peace with someone

who comes and first
of all buys land

but wants to create
a Jewish country?

Not Arab and Jewish,
but a Jewish country.

Tensions rose bit by bit
with the waves of immigration

when the Arabs sensed
that the country was

slipping from their hands.

World War I would upset
geography in the Middle East.

On the loser's side,
the Ottoman Empire

was dismantled by
peace treaties.

With the exception
of Turkey, Asia Minor

was now managed
by Western powers.

The Sykes-Picot
secret agreement,

signed between France
and Great Britain,

assigned Palestine
to the British.

The British were
responsible for making

it possible for the Israeli,
for the Jewish people

to have a state
in Palestine, not

to speak of Balfour
Declaration in which it also

promised the land to the Jews.

To guarantee a Western presence
in the area, in November 1917,

British Minister for Foreign
Affairs Arthur James Balfour

wrote an open letter the Lord
Lionel Walter Rothschild,

one of the Zionist
Movement's leaders.

He wrote, "His Majesty's
government view with favor

the establishment in
Palestine of a national home

for the Jewish people and
will use their best endeavors

to facilitate the
achievement of this object,

it being clearly understood
that nothing shall be done which

may prejudice the civil and
religious rights of existing

non-Jewish communities
in Palestine."

The Balfour Declaration of
1917 was the declaration

of a colonialist offering
someone else a gift that

did not belong to them.

In 1917, just when the British
government adopted the Zionist

project in order to create a
national country for the Jews

in Palestine,
Palestinians represented

98% of the population.

The most reliable
figure was from 1919

when the English took
possession of this area.

For the first time, they
conducted a very serious

population census.

In 1919, there were 700,000
Arabs and 70,000 Jews.

Right from the
start, the British

were sharply aware that in
order to stay a long time

they had to divide this up.

The first act the division
was absolutely perverse.

In the first census,
they created categories

that didn't even exist.

They created a Jewish
category and they

created an Arab category.

And it was always that.

In other words, let's
make them fight each other

and we will always
be the referee.

With the rise of
Arab nationalism,

the first anti-Jewish
protests started

in March, April
1920 in Jerusalem,

then May 1921 in
Jaffa and Tel Aviv.

Over 50 people were killed.

Minister of Colonies
Winston Churchill

investigated the events.

Early in 1922, he
published a white paper

to clarify the British
stance on Palestine.

In July 1922, the
League of Nations

gave Britain a mandate
to prepare the creation

of a National Jewish home.

Between 1924 and 1928, more
than 60,000 Jewish people

arrived in Palestine.

On August the 20th,
1929, protests

broke out between Jews
and Muslims over access

to the Wailing
Wall in Jerusalem.

Two days later,
rumors circulated

about an imminent Jewish
attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Arab attacks
against Jews started

in the old city of
Jerusalem before spreading

throughout Palestine.

67 Jews, including women and
children were killed in Hebron.

Other massacres
took place in Safed

where 18 Jews were killed.

During a week of protests,
133 Jews were killed by Arabs.

A British report
claimed, "these protests

are local expressions of
animosity and hostility

by Arabs against Jews
because of the Arab's

frustrated political
and national hopes.

The Nazi party rose
to power in 1933

and started with the
persecution of Jews

in Germany, then in Austria.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler and his
Minister of Propaganda Joseph

Goebbels organized the
boycott of all businesses

owned by Jews.

The Jewish Agency
signed an agreement

with the Third Reich
minister of economy,

which allowed German Jews
to emigrate to Palestine,

provided they abandon
most of their possessions

before leaving.

The arrival of over
30,000 immigrants

gave the economy a fresh boost.

The immigrants were
intellectuals, scientists,

architects, and artists.

Many companies were started.

The population of Tel
Aviv founded in 1909

tripled and now counted
150,000 inhabitants.

The beaches and fashionable
places were crowded.

"Yesterday, a new
elegant cafe opened

on the corner of Allenby
and Bialik Streets,

worthy of the great European
capitals," wrote the magazine

Haaretz.

In 1935, David
Ben-Gurion was elected

president of the Jewish Agency.

He had arrived in
Palestine in 1906

when he was 20, from a
small town close to Warsaw,

to participate in
creating the new state.

He wanted a country
for Jews immediately.

His friends understood that
it was going to take time.

In the same year,
he was named head

of the Haganah, the armed
group for the defense

of Palestinian Jews
forbidden by the British.

In April 1936, the Arabs
called for a general strike

throughout the country
and demanded an end

to immigration and the
sale of land to Jews.

The Palestinian Arab
opposition culminated

in the great revolt of 1936,
protesting against both Zionism

and the British
presence in Palestine.

Casualties from the
riots were very high.

Several hundred Arabs
were killed by the British

and over 300 Jews also died.

The Arab high committee
convened in October

under the general leadership
of Amin al-Husseini,

grand mufti of Jerusalem.

The mufti was the leader
of the Palestinian people.

He was a horrible man whose
nationalism was pro-Nazi.

Not just because the Nazis
were the enemies of the British

and the Jews, but also
because he sympathized

with the Nazi ideology.

It was total blindness.

The mufti's mad idea of throwing
himself into Hitler's arms

in Berlin.

The mufti went to
Berlin and attempted

to create SS divisions,
Muslim SS soldiers.

He wanted to create a
unit with the German Army

to come to Palestine and
fight the Jews there.

The mufti didn't really have
any authority in Germany.

Hitler didn't care
about the mufti,

but he linked up with Eichmann.

Eichmann, early on in 1936,
directed the Jewish department

of the Gestapo in the
SS and he was sent here

to learn about the enemy.

In other words, to learn
Hebrew, the traditions,

and then return to Germany and
know what he was confronting,

so as to take care of it.

They were obsessed with learning
exactly what a Jew really was.

Eichmann and the mufti met
together several times.

Eichmann spoke of it and the
mufti wrote it in his memoirs.

They had a common goal--

to get rid of the Jews.

For a long time afterwards,
we paid the price

for the mufti of Jerusalem's
crazy sidetracking.

The historian Hagai
Horowitz would

write, "when the grand mufti
of Jerusalem met with Hitler,

it was a sign that the National
Arab Movement's objectives had

changed.

For the first time, everyone
was aware of the danger

that threatened our existence.

It was no longer imaginary.

It was the blow that changed
the nature of the conflict

and our combat strategy."

While Nazis proclaimed the
Nuremberg laws and the lives

of millions of Jews were
threatened in Europe,

the British blocked immigration
routes to Palestine.

For those who wanted
to flee the Reich,

there weren't many
alternative choices

because other nations were
also closing their doors

to Jewish people.

This was notably the case
with the United States

where immigration
quotas set by Congress

radically reduced the
number of refugees

from Germany and Austria.

In July 1938, the
Evian conference

convened to discuss how
to help the German Jews

but closed without
reaching its objective.

None of the 32
countries present would

agree to open their
borders to persecuted Jews.

As war with Germany
loomed, the British

organized the St. James
conference in February 1939,

hoping to avoid an
Arab-Axis alliance.

The conference brought
Jews and Arabs together

for the first time
but the Arab delegates

refused to sit with the
Jewish Agency representatives.

The British considered Palestine
more than ever a ticking time

bomb.

They published the White Paper
with policies considerably

limiting the number
of new immigrants

and resolutely
confirming that they

had no intention of creating
a Jewish state in Palestine.

Adolf Hitler had
just invaded Poland.

World War II had just begun.

Palestine lived in constant
threat of an invasion

by Rommel's German forces who
were on the African continent.

Ben-Gurion declared, "we will
help the British in the war

as if there had not
been a White Paper.

And we will fight
against the White Paper

as if there is no war."

The general staffs of the
Haganah and the British Army

agreed to create a
force made up of Jews

in the British Army,
whose mission would

be to fight the Nazi forces.

As a child, my father
spoke four languages

and had a very well-developed
political conscience.

His mother died just after
the 1939 Nazi invasion.

He then convinced his father
that there was no other place

for Jews except Israel.

For four months, they
traveled in a boat

filled with illegal travelers.

On board a boat that no
country would allow it

to dock at its ports--

neither the English,
nor Churchill,

nor Roosevelt's America, nor
any country in the world.

A small 12-year-old Jewish child
would have nothing but the sea

beneath his feet.

Finally, they arrived here
and the English arrested them.

People continue to arrive
here, several thousand people.

And everyone told stories.

We thought the ghettos had
been the worst possible thing

but we started to receive
alarming information out

of Poland.

Hard tragic news
started to come in,

serial murders in many places.

They didn't believe it.

People at first could
not even conceive of it.

They thought of the programs
and of anti-Semitism.

It seemed to be so horrible that
it could not possibly be true.

And bit by bit at
year's end, we started

to get a harsh image of the
events with appalling methods.

People buried alive, parents
forced to bury their children.

And of course,
gunshot executions

in front of the ditches.

In 1942, a telegram
arrived here saying

that Himmler had decided
to kill by the end

of the year between 3.5
and 4 million people

in suitable locations with a
gas called hydrogen cyanide.

That telegram
seems so improbable

that it remained in a drawer.

A first group
arrived and traveled

around saying, "that's
what's happening.

It's all true.

It's terrible."

They're doing it methodically.

How could you hear such a
thing when your entire family

was living in Europe?

It meant they had no more
family, no more community.

World War II ended,
but the allied victory

over Nazi Germany would
not affect British policy.

London still refused
to allow escapees

to emigrate to Palestine.

At the same time, 100,000
European Jewish survivors

had nowhere to go.

A third of the worldwide
Jewish population

had been assassinated in the
gas chambers and in Nazi camps.

It proved that the
Zionists were right.

A people without a
country is a people

that is led like beasts
to the slaughterhouse,

but also because the
Holocaust survivors had

nowhere else to go.

There were so many Jews
looking for a place to settle.

Doors to the United States
were closed and locked

so even if the Holocaust
hadn't happened,

Jews would have come here you
and in increasing numbers.

Panama sent me to Europe
after the Holocaust.

And I met those
who had survived,

the remaining European Jews.

It was an enormous shock for
me when I arrived over there.

One day, I joined
some young adolescents

who wanted to emigrate covertly,
going through Italy and France.

It was snowing.

It was cold.

I lived with them
for an entire week.

Every night, one of them
would start screaming.

They all had nightmares.

It was such a shock,
a terrible shock.

It will stay with me
for the rest of my life.

After the war, many survivors
were distraught, disoriented.

In fact, most of them
were because of how

they had suffered
terribly and the feeling

they were now
alone in the world.

People were experiencing
such terrible trauma

that no one was able to speak,
no one could say what happened.

Most of these people had
lost their entire family.

When we met a family with
two sets of grandparents,

we asked ourselves,
how is this possible?

It sounded like the tales
you would read in books.

It could not possibly be true.

I was born in September '46 in a
Jewish refugee camp in Austria,

near the city of Linz.

The first two years of my life,
I spent them in those camps.

I grew up there.

From 1945, Jews who had escaped
from concentration camps

were herded into DP camps,
Displaced Persons camps,

in Germany and Austria.

Surrounded by barbed wire
fences, treated in sensitively

by allied soldiers, they did not
want to return to the countries

where their families
had been assassinated.

An American high official
reported to President Truman,

"the situation now is that
we are treating the Jews

like the Nazis did, except that
we are not exterminating them."

The war was over but
the Holocaust was not.

Because when the Jews started
to return to Poland, Lithuania,

Slovakia, Hungary, Romania,
to go back to their homes,

they found they had been
occupied by other people

and they were killed.

In Poland alone,
about 2,000 Jews

were killed between
1945 and 1946.

People always refer
to the Iasi Pogrom

but it was only one
pogrom among many.

We left Poland in the summer
of 1946 after the Iasi Pogrom.

We could have gone
to the United States

but my mother said
after the Holocaust

we should go where
Jews were living.

We arrived on a Greek
boat without authorization

from the British government.

We have been given fake papers.

On the day we arrived,
there was a curfew.

My mother said, "help,
where have we landed?

What kind of a place is this?"

With Operation
Igloo, the British

transported all the Jews trying
to reach Palestine to Cyprus.

In their personal notes, they
referred to this deportation

more sensitively as
transferring and moving

to avoid alluding to
previous concentration camp

deportations.

As soon as the boats filled
with refugees arrived

in the port of Haifa, the
waiting British forces

evacuated them and transferred
them to Cyprus in cage boats.

More than 50,000 Jews would
go through these barbed wire

enclosed camps guarded
by armed military men.

Most were Holocaust survivors.

Philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote,
"the internment camps in Cyprus

were only possible because
the entire world thought

it more humane than Auschwitz."

If we look closely at all the
decisions Great Britain made

when they started blocking
Jewish immigration,

it wasn't because of
fundamental political changes.

It was because they knew
they were being ousted.

In June 1946, the English
began operation Agatha.

During a search,
they found documents

proving that the Jewish Agency
supported acts of sabotage.

They decided to hit hard.

2,700 people were arrested.

It was a heavy blow
for the Zionists.

One month later,
the men of Lehi,

a Jewish paramilitary group,
blew up the King David Hotel

British Headquarters,
killing 91 people.

Paradoxically, this
universally condemned

act would move events along
and play in the Zionists favor.

The British understood
they would soon no longer

be able to control Jewish
organizations, which were

increasingly better structured.

Great Britain finally
chose to retreat.

Bit by bit, the confrontations
increased, up to 1947,

when the situation
completely degenerated.

Upon British
request, the UN named

an international investigation
commission in April 1947.

The final report
recommended creating

a Jewish and an Arab state.

Surprised by this
decision, Great Britain

refused this
suggestion of sharing,

declared it would abandon
its rule in six-month's time.

There was no doubt the Holocaust
had influenced a large part

of United Nation's members.

And that the UN mission
that came here and saw

the Jewish refugee
camps in Europe

decided after all
that had happened

the Jews should be
given a country.

What the Palestinian
leadership didn't see in 1948

was that the Holocaust
had taken place

and that the whole world was
convinced that the victims

deserved reparation.

And that fundamental
reparation for the victim

was the emergence
of a Jewish state.

And that this was the
only adequate solution

to the Nazi barbarism.

While the commission
was working,

Mossad would attempt to force
the British to open Palestine

ports to Jews.

It chartered an old boat named
Exodus 1947 for the operation.

The boat arrived
outside of Haifa

with 4,500 Jewish immigrants
from central Europe.

Most of the passengers were
Nazi death camp survivors.

Rather than stagnate in
displaced persons camps,

they had opted to join the
network of clandestine trips

to Palestine.

They thought they could finally
set foot on the promised land,

but the Royal Navy boarded
and searched the vessel.

In the confusion, three
passengers were killed

and a hundred others wounded.

There were terrible clashes
during the entire journey.

We were expelled from
Haifa, and then sent back

to France, then Hamburg.

This act shook world opinion.

The British had to compromise
with international opinion that

favored resolving
the Jewish problem

as peacefully as possible.

At the UN, delegations got ready
to vote for Palestine's future.

David Ben-Gurion listened
to the first results

on the radio with
Eleanor Roosevelt--

the former president's
widow beside him.

She had been influential
in engaging the United

States in World War II
and played a decisive role

in creating the United Nations.

France remained quiet
about its intentions.

But Leon Blum, moved by
Chaim Weizmann's telegram

promised to use
all his influence.

President Truman pressured
reluctant state representatives

to vote in favor of partition.

In return, the Philippines
and Haiti would receive loans.

The majority were to vote
against the partition plan,

but the Americans used
Thanksgiving as a pretext

to postpone the vote.

They then came back with the
support of two small countries,

we couldn't even
pinpoint on the world

map, which the
Americans had swayed

during their national holiday.

And the majority vote changed.

The Soviet minister for
foreign affairs Andrei Gromyko

surprised the Western world
with an unexpected pro-Zionist

speech.

During the last war,
the Jewish people

underwent incredible suffering.

This explains why the Jews want
to establish their own state.

And it would be unjust to
refuse them that right.

Andrei Gromyko made a speech
in which he presented himself

as a Zionist.

For years, they pursued Zionists
and locked them up in Gulags.

Gromyko's speech had nothing
to do with what was happening.

Soviet diplomacy has
never had a reputation

for being sentimental.

Everything boils
down to interests.

The Soviet Union wanted
to replace the British

in the Middle East.

It knew that the English
would be forced out

and wanted to be the first
before the United States could

steal their place.

Soviet Union, yes.

United Kingdom, abstain.

France, yes.

The resolution of the
Committee for Palestine

was adopted by 33 votes,
13 against, 10 abstentions.

[APPLAUSE]

The majority vote we got during
the decision on partition

in November 1947, we
never could have got it.

And even then, it wasn't simple.

It is said that the United
Nation's decision ensued

because the Westerners
had a guilty conscience

about the Holocaust.

Excuse me, but where was
your conscience before that?

All of a sudden, they
had a guilty conscience.

It's one of the country's
great paradoxes.

It was founded after the
worst tragedy in the history

of the Jewish people.

The UN resolution proposed
dividing Palestine

into two states--

one Jewish, and the other Arab--

with Jerusalem under
international control.

But most Palestinian Arabs
and all the Arab states

rejected this plan and
any division of Palestine.

Did the Palestinians
make a mistake

by not accepting partition?

Does that suggest how
fanatic they were practically

from birth?

Opposing the UN vote on
partitioning Palestine

was a mistake for the Arabs.

Without a doubt,
in retrospect, we

can say today that it was
a mistake and not just what

had happened in 1947.

From their viewpoint,
it wasn't a mistake.

They weren't at all ready
to accept a Jewish country.

To live next to
a Jewish country?

Certainly not.

All of Israel's attempts
to split into two countries

failed because of
the Palestinians.

They simply didn't see
why they should give up

half of their homeland.

They couldn't comprehend it.

Why?

If the Arabs had said
yes at that moment,

would things really
have been headed

towards a better
situation or not?

Would the Israelis or the
Jews have really accepted

those things?

The day of the UN
declaration, I was

very young and already asleep.

I remember my mother
came in to wake

me up so I would remember
the day the state of Israel

was created.

She said, "they gave
a state to the Jews."

David Ben-Gurion didn't hide
his concerns from Shimon Peres,

in charge of purchasing weapons.

"Today, the people are dancing,
but tomorrow blood will flow."

I thought he was exaggerating,
but the party ended and indeed

blood did begin to flow.

My father used to say to me
that the day the vote would

be recognized and announced,
a war was sure to follow.

Israel was born in war.

People danced all night
on November the 29th.

And the last dances,
the next morning,

saw the first ones killed.

We were told, return
quickly to Tel Aviv.

There are already
some dead in Ramla.

The first war started
with partition.

A war between the Haganah
and the Palestinians,

which was, in fact, the first
in the Israeli-Palestinian

conflict.

What happened was
the Palestinians

did not accept the decision
and they started a war.

The Arabs launched
terrorist attacks.

Bombs exploded in cities
and roads were mined.

In Jerusalem, a
triple-pronged car bomb attack

targeted the offices of the
Palestinian post, the Benyehuda

Road Market and the
Jewish Agency offices.

A hundred Jews were killed.

In Haifa, members of Irgun,
the paramilitary organization

that broke away
from the Haganah,

threw two bombs into a
group of Arab workers,

killing six of them.

In retaliation, the angry
crowd killed 39 Jews

before British soldiers
could reestablish order.

The Dalet Plan was
developed in March 1948.

It gave Haganah
the responsibility

for keeping order and
authorized it to start

expelling Palestinians.

Ben-Gurion planned to implement
the plan around May the 15th

when the British would leave.

But due to the military
reality on the ground,

the Haganah went
on the offensive

and put the plan into action
almost straight-away in April.

The Haganah did all they
could to pressure them,

to scare them, so
that they would leave.

With gunshots in the night
and jeeps or vehicles passing,

they got scared.

The question of evacuating
places and settling

in replacements
constantly came up.

So there was already a very
clear policy in action.

We also have all the
operational plans

carried out by
the military units

and the Jewish army, which
was the Haganah back then.

And they were all aimed
at evacuating land.

When my parents got here, they
were offered some housing.

A house in Jerusalem
that belonged

to Palestinians who had fled.

And both of them turned it down.

They found it bizarre.

They said, "we ourselves
are refugees too.

How could we take
someone else's house?"

Several killings
took place to make

people understand that if they
didn't leave, they face death.

However, if they left,
their lives would be spared.

Remember, the Deir Yassin
happened in March '48

and will cause a panic.

Deir Yassin was a
small Arab village

of 600 people located five
kilometers from Jerusalem.

It had no strategic importance
and was not one of the villages

targeted for take-over.

Yet in spite of Haganah leader
reticence, the Irgun and Lehi--

two paramilitary groups--
attacked the village

on the morning of April the 9th.

But the operation
was ill-prepared

and the Palestinians surprised
them with their resistance,

killing five including
several officers.

The Irgun and Lehi men then
took houses one by one,

blowing up several of them.

There were nearly 200
victims in the massacre.

They created conditions
and planned operations

calculated to scare
people and make them flee.

As well as the murders
and the massacres,

they did like in the
village of Deir Yassin.

In other villages and
cities like in Lod,

people had fled, looking for
protection to stay alive.

About Deir Yassin, everybody
heard about Deir Yassin,

and everybody's mind began to
be that if we stay and we have

these Jewish forces come,
they will also massacre us

as they did in Deir Yassin,
so we better not stay and get

massacred.

People were terrorized of
the rumors of Deir Yassin.

People were convinced Zionists
would come to kill us all.

We know very well
Zionists had never

had that intention but
to make the largest

number of people flee, yes.

Deir Yassin was
early on and it was

used as a psychological
warfare in convincing many more

Arabs and frightening many more
Arabs into fleeing their homes.

In the memoirs of the first
American ambassador to Israel,

information about Deir
Yassin was still fresh.

In a conversation he had
with Weizmann, the pacifist,

he said the killings
were unnecessary.

Weizmann pronounced this
was spine-chilling phrase,

"this massacre has been a
miraculous simplification

of Israel's tasks.

It has convinced the most
stubborn among them to leave."

They taught our children
that, well, it's

sad that they died but
it's not that important.

What's important is
that we have a country.

On May the 14th,
1948, a jubilant crowd

marched through Tel
Aviv bearing flags

adorned with the Star of David.

In Tel Aviv, because
Jerusalem was surrounded

and inaccessible,
Ben-Gurion stood

under a portrait
of Theodor Herzl

and announced in
a firm voice, "we

proclaimed the founding
of the Jewish state

which will be called Israel.

We extend our hand to
all neighboring states

and their peoples in an offer of
peace and good neighborliness.

There is enough room in this
country for us and the Arabs."

The state of Israel was born,
the dream had become reality.

But the high Arab
council immediately

declared, "Arabs solemnly
declare before God and history

that they will never submit
to such a power coming

to Palestine to
impose partition."

Great Britain's tenure
officially came to an end

and their troops went home.

The British commander gave back
command of Palestinian lands

to Zionist leaders.

I was so excited that I couldn't
sleep for several nights.

Tel Aviv minus the English.

They had left the
country but they

left the Arabs many weapons.

The English were anti
Zionists from the start.

They didn't believe that
Israel, which was born in blood,

could stand up to
all the Arab armies.

Most diplomats
and world leaders,

and even some of the
Zionist leaders here,

had serious doubts
that the new state

could hold up against
attacks from Arab armies.

Armies from
neighboring Arab states

invaded the areas of the
old Palestinian mandate.

The first Arab-Israeli
war had started.

Egyptian planes bombed Tel Aviv.

Less than three years
after liberation

from concentration camps,
the great majority of Jews

felt they were continuing
their fight to survive.

It's true that declaring war
when you're not even ready

is indeed a mistake.

It should be remembered that
it was the Arab side who

started the war and lost.

Should Israel have
behaved in a better way?

Yes.

There were constant
announcements.

If you leave by the
Haifa coastal route

Haifa which is what we did,
you won't risk your life.

You can escape easily.

They were put into trucks.

Between Haifa and Tel Aviv,
nearly all the inhabitants

of the villages were expelled.

People felt endangered and
didn't feel safe to stay.

And they all thought as was
the case with my parents

in Jaffa that they
would leave and be safe

as people do in wars.

And then after the war is over,
they would be able to return.

But they were never
able to return.

My father made sure
my mother and I were

evacuated a few weeks earlier.

In a truck full of women and
children who they literally

dumped at the South
Lebanese border.

When the town fell, my father
and sister went to the port

and got on one of the
last boats sailing out,

which they were lucky
to get on, and that's

how they arrived in exile
in Lebanon crossing the sea.

Someone who lived
through the Nakba

told me, when leaving,
we found boats

that were waiting for us to
leave on the beaches of Jaffa.

Did those boats
come by themselves?

No, it wasn't just chance.

Those boats were
made ready to force

people to flee or emigrate.

People didn't leave
by themselves.

No one leaves their house, their
fields, their land voluntarily.

In times of war, people
are afraid and they flee.

They hope that when
the war is over,

they will come back, especially
farmers, back to their land,

in their houses.

The Arab leaders said to
them, "leave, we will win

and you can come back later.

We'll get our property and our
land back because we will win."

Someone who flees their home
has no right to come back to it.

The crime was not
letting them come back.

During wartime, people flee.

They move.

All kinds of things happen.

But why did we shoot at them
when they tried to come back?

In July, long after-- a few
months after the establishment

of the Israeli state
which was in May--

in July at gunpoint, people
were forced out of their home.

Nearly 750,000 Palestinians
had been expelled before,

during, and after 1948.

Following a series of operations
interspersed by truces,

the Israeli military forces
were winning on all fronts

except for Jerusalem,
which was split

in half by the
armistice line leaving

the old town to the Arabs.

The Jewish population was chased
out by the Jordanian forces.

The West Bank was annexed
by the Kingdom of Jordan,

and the Gaza Strip
was occupied by Egypt.

Palestine disappeared
from official maps.

By winning the war, Israel
conquered 26% more territory

than the partition
plan provided for,

taking control of 81%
of Palestine in 1947.

After the war,
Israel would settle

on the lands it had conquered.

Part of these lands
were state land

but another part were
lands from Arab villages

which were nationalized.

I can't ignore it.

It's a fact of history.

10% of the Palestinians lands
were purchased up to 1947.

Only 10%, barely 10%.

The rest of the land was
annexed, seized after 1948

after the war.

Out of the 900,000
Palestinian Arabs

living in territories
now controlled by Israel,

nearly 750,000 left
during the war of 1948.

Only 150,000
Palestinians were left,

subject to Israeli
military administration.

The international community
carefully ignored the refugees

as they drifted
with no place to go.

Add to that, in 1948 there were
millions of displaced people

all over Europe.

So 800,000 Palestinians
or natives, as we

were called back then.

Where is the problem?

As soon as the state
of Israel was created,

the British laws
limiting immigration

were abolished, opening
the doors wide to all Jews.

The Law of Return
established the right

of every Jew to become an
Israeli citizen by immigrating

to the country.

It was the start of
a huge immigration

from Europe, a true tidal wave.

More than half were
survivors of the Holocaust.

During the first six
months after independence,

100,000 immigrants landed in
Israel and more than 250,000

in 1949, increasing the
country's population by 50%.

These new immigrants coming
from all over the world

were strangers to each other
and spoke an incalculable number

of different languages.

The priority was then to
integrate these hundreds

of thousands of immigrants.

We came here in boats.

I was a little
over six years old.

We came from Buenos
Aires in Argentina.

For us children, it was
a marvelous adventure.

We felt like it was a
new life, a new name,

a new place where we had
to start everything over.

It was very hard, but it
was a wonderful feeling.

During a spectacular operation
named Operation Magic Carpet,

over 45,000
immigrants from Yemen

were brought to Israel
on three flights a day.

The Yemenite Jewish
community was

one of the oldest in
the Arab peninsula.

In 1947, soon after the
UN vote, violent protests

against the Jews killed
82 people with stores

sacked and destroyed
and synagogues burned.

Ben-Gurion declared in
front of the Knesset,

our goal is to acclimatize the
Yemenites to Israeli values,

until they forget where
they came from, just as I

had forgotten I was Polish.

For my grandmother
who was a Marxist,

they weren't even primitives,
but proto-primitives.

On the other hand,
for the Yemenites,

my grandmother
wasn't even Jewish.

An article published in
the newspaper, Haaretz,

stated, "These
immigrants from Yemen

are at a level
below Palestinians.

It will take generations
to get them out

of the medieval
pit they live in."

Faced with a wave of immigration
and a lack of resources,

the Ben-Gurion government
implemented an austerity

program and food rationing.

Thousands of Israelis
protested for bread and work

and sacked the offices
of the Jewish Agency,

demanding work and lodging.

The population had doubled,
but not the resources.

There was nothing,
only ration tickets.

We had nothing left to eat.

There was almost no food.

At the end of 1951,
nothing was left.

It was the German reparations
money that would save us.

Ben-Gurion understood he
needed the German reparations,

since the Israeli
economy was dying.

And without that money, he
couldn't accomplish much.

Menachem Begin, ghetto
survivors, and even

the left wing said, what?

German money?

You'll have to kill us.

We really were starting to die.

Begin was opposed to
this answer, which

he viewed as a blood
ransom, dirty money,

money exchanged for
the blood of Jews.

And he organized demonstrations
throughout the country,

especially Jerusalem.

People lived in shacks.

There was austerity.

Petro was getting low.

Gas, money.

We were crumbling.

So if Germans were
paying, why not?

One Israeli in
four was a survivor

of the Holocaust in the 1950s.

My people cannot
forget its past.

But Germany of today is not
the Germany of yesterday.

(NON-ENGLISH SINGING)

You have to understand people's
state of mind after the war.

The intense hate they
had against Germans

continued in Israel.

When I go to Israel and we
received an Israeli passport,

inside it was written,
"valid for all countries

except Germany."

Speaking German was forbidden.

In the following
years, the situation

for Jews in Arab
and Muslim countries

worsened after demonstrations
and openly anti-Semitic

policies.

The main objective for members
of the Jewish communities

in the Arab world,
over 850,000 people,

was to flee those
countries, leaving

behind their possessions.

Among them, 600,000
sought refuge in Israel.

The president of the Jewish
Agency executive branch

declared, we should bring
all Sephardic Jews here

to save them, but also to
acquire the manpower we

need to build the country.

Ben-Gurion wanted to
bring every Jew over here.

They told him, listen,
our economy will collapse.

It's impossible.

We can't increase our
population in three years.

But Ben-Gurion wouldn't
listen and ordered

all Jews to be brought over.

830,000 Jews had been
expelled from Arab countries

from Egypt, Iraq,
Yemen, North Africa.

They arrived with nothing,
went straight into tents.

The first waves of
Sephardic Jewish immigration

brought people to
Israel, who faced

insurmountable
integration difficulties.

Many North African
immigrants could neither read

nor write in any language.

Their lives were completely
turned upside down.

The arrival of Jews who had been
expelled from Arab countries

and were now here as refugees--

most of them Zionists--

caused panic.

Because now, there was a
population here from Europe.

Israel decided to
transfer the immigrants

to work in collective farms.

Eyewitnesses remember
immigrants refusing

to descend from the trucks,
which tilted their platforms

to force them out.

Most of them knew
nothing about farming

and had received no
training beforehand.

One newspaper wrote.

"Inside the camps, you see
a confused mass of people

of all ages and from everywhere,
disoriented, disconcerted,

loaded with baskets,
babies, hordes of children."

What the North African Jews
and Jews from Arab lands

suffered here deserves
a film of its own.

Without getting into details,
they suffered atrocious things.

I grew up during
the '50s and '60s.

In Tel Aviv, there
were practically only

Ashkenazi kids.

Only afterwards did I begin to
understand that this wasn't all

of Israel's society, that
they had tried to build

a kind of European bubble.

When they got here, the
Jews from Eastern Europe

took control.

They were leaders of
the Zionist movement,

then they led the country.

They treated Jews from Arab
countries as an inferior race.

They arrived here
with total contempt

for all that wasn't European.

It was shameful.

It was, the Asians are
arriving, the Orientals.

They have no culture, and
most of them are illiterate.

The heads of the Jewish
Agency sounded the alarm.

We are destroying these people.

Ben-Gurion insisted immigration
strengthens our security.

By doubling, tripling
the number of immigrants,

we can increase our strength.

But the Minister of
Immigration refused.

The rest of us, the
managers of integration,

confirmed that it must be
slowed down at all costs.

So the government took measures
inconceivable a year ago.

Limit the waves of immigration
as much as possible.

In '51, there were 173,000.

In '52, less than 24,000 and
10,000 the following year.

Ben-Gurion asked the women
to have many children.

And in the end, the ones
who had a lot of children

weren't the ones whose
progeny he wanted.

He was frustrated.

The country didn't match
what he wanted it to be.

He was disappointed not
just by the Sephardic Jews,

but by the Jews in general.

What to do?

There wasn't another people.

It was our people.

In a few years,
Israel grew by 10%.

Several cities were created as
well as nearly 400 kibbutzim

and collective farms.

But the country had to
face up to the Arab refusal

to accept them in the region.

There were thousands
of clashes and acts

of sabotage inside Israel.

And more than 400 Israelis
were killed from 1953 to 1956.

In Egypt, King
Farouk was deposed.

And Lieutenant Colonel Gamal
Abdel Nasser took power.

As a soldier, Nasser
was taken prisoner here.

He had become good friends with
one of the Israeli officers,

and the Palestinian question
wasn't a big concern for him.

[SIREN]

During the year 1956, tensions
rose between Israel and Egypt

with raids led by Palestinians
in Israeli territory.

Nasser rose to power and
nationalized the Suez Canal

in July, closing it
to Israeli ships.

His regime, together with the
constant acts of harassment,

culminated in the Sinai
Campaign and the Suez Crisis.

France, Great
Britain, and Israel

concluded a secret agreement
to take control of the canal

and overthrow Nasser.

On October the 29th, 1956, the
Israeli invasion of the Sinai

was followed by British
and French troops

landing in Port Said.

I participated in
numerous wars--

several wars.

In most of the cases,
we didn't have a choice,

except once, when Moshe Dayan
with the English and French

went to attack Egypt in 1956.

It's true that in 1956,
Israel had occupied Sinai,

but they only stayed
for three weeks.

The French, English,
and Israelis

were forced to retreat under
pressure from the United

States and the Soviet Union.

The Suez expedition had turned
into a fiasco, a crisis.

Nasser emerged as the
great victor in the crisis.

He managed to transform
a military rout

into a political triumph
that raised his popularity

in the Arab world considerably.

Sinai was given to
Egypt early in 1957.

Ben-Gurion felt this retreat
was a personal failure.

He had wanted this
war against Egypt.

And that decision was criticized
in the seat of government.

President Eisenhower was
furious that Ben-Gurion

had intervened
without consulting

the American government.

Ben-Gurion felt
bitter and depressed,

until a day in May 1960, when
he appeared before the Knesset

to read a declaration.

[SPEAKING HEBREW]

Adolf Eichmann, who had
been captured in Argentina,

would be tried in Jerusalem
for his participation

in the Final Solution.

It was the first time
that a high-ranking Nazi

appeared before those he
had wanted to annihilate.

During the 11 months
between Eichmann's capture

and the start of the
trial, Ben-Gurion

would do his utmost
to ensure a Nuremberg

for the Jewish people.

[NON-ENGLISH]

I went there every day from
the first to the last day.

I was the only reporter to
follow the trial from start

to finish.

There were 110 witnesses.

And day and night,
we had them speak.

Thanks to the transistor
radio, the Eichmann trial

would act as collective
therapy for Israelis,

especially young people.

Young people born in Israel
knew nothing about the past.

They knew so little.

It took time.

We had to wait for the 1960s.

With his final
mission accomplished,

David Ben-Gurion retired from
public life in June 1963,

after serving as prime
minister for 14 years

and designated Levi
Eshkol as his successor.

Then he returned to his kibbutz,
Sde Boker, in the Negev Desert.

Ben-Gurion was
like a Machiavelli.

That was Ben-Gurion.

Without him, the state of Israel
wouldn't have been created.

We the Palestinian people have
paid a heavy price in blood

for the birth of
the state of Israel.

Israeli position has
been that with time,

the Palestinians would
forget Palestine.

And they would find
other places to live.

And as the generations
go, they will simply

have no memory of
Palestine and therefore,

no attachment and so on.

But that is also,
of course, not true.

Ben-Gurion said that in a
dozen years or 20 years,

they'd even forget
they were a people.

Fortunately, he was not right.

Thank God.

The links Palestinians
have with their land

have remained very strong.

Ben-Gurion made a lot
of mistakes, of course.

He thought, then, with time,
they'd end up forgetting.

They haven't forgotten it.

And we won't let them forget.

Though many of those
who have left this land

haven't found their
place, it's also

because the countries
who accepted

them did not allow them to
make a place for themselves.

They weren't integrated.

They were placed
in refugee camps.

Palestinians are
the only people who

have been refugees from
one generation to another.

They never wanted to integrate
them for personal reasons,

but also to keep the
Palestinian question alive.

Of course, it's a diplomatic
and moral weapon against Israel.

As if to excuse
their powerlessness,

the Arab regimes repeated
beautiful speeches,

promising the
liberation of Palestine.

But in May 1964,
a congress uniting

Palestinian representatives
Gamal Abdel Nasser and King

Hussein of Jordan was held
in the east of Jerusalem.

The Palestinian question,
thus, has more weight.

Because the Arab world can
unite over this question.

And the Palestinian
question becomes central.

The Congress was held
on the Mount of Olives.

It was the First Congress.

My father was there, along
with many other Palestinians.

Ahmad al-Shukeiri
was also there.

Nasser would insist on the
Palestinian Ahmad Shukeiri

as the first president of the
PLO, the Palestine Liberation

Organization.

The PLO felt armed conflict
was the route to follow.

The [INAUDIBLE] was
not just a defeat.

It was an utter
demolition of the notion,

an attempt at
utterly demolishing

the Palestinian existence.

And when you try and demolish
the existence of another,

then you put their backs on the
wall, and then they fight back.

This was the start of
Palestinian terrorism.

Fedayeen threw
themselves into a wave

of attacks that would undermine
Israeli society morale,

especially since the
country was experiencing

an unprecedented
economic crisis.

Many Israelis left the country.

An ironic sign in the airport
said, "The last Israeli

to leave should turn
out the lights."

In '65, there was a great
recession in Israel.

I was a child at the time.

Our economic situation
was catastrophic.

Unemployment was rising.

There was no more money.

We lived very modestly, really.

From the Syrian Golan Heights,
heavy artillery attacks

regularly occurred
against Israeli locations

in northern Galilee.

Prime Minister Levi Eshkol
went there to try and reassure

the people.

In April, 1967,
seven Syrian MiG-21s

were shot down by the Israelis.

The Arab world had to retaliate.

In May 1967, the
conflict escalated.

Nasser ordered his
army to reoccupy

the Sinai, a demilitarized
zone for the past 10 years,

and insisted that the UN
international forces deployed

there must depart.

By closing the Straits of
Tehran between the Aqaba

Gulf and the Red Sea,
Egypt blocked access

to the Israeli port Eilat.

For Israel, it was a [INAUDIBLE]
that could only lead to war.

Nasser fell into such a trap.

He thought he could talk
about it without actually

doing anything.

From the moment he
started talking about it,

a mechanism was set in motion.

And he was caught up in it.

He didn't think he
would have to do it.

They really took him for a ride,
which he realized afterwards.

Just prior to the
Six-Day War, there

were three weeks that were
called the weeks of waiting,

and we waited.

Nasser had closed
all passage points,

and wanted to invade us,
and to occupy our country.

Nasser forced us to
call in the reservists.

And given that it was
a tiny state, when

we called in the reservists,
there was no one left to work.

I said to my wife, if they
mobilize us elderly people too,

that means there will be war.

For long weeks, the
country was in suspense.

People weren't working.

It's something you can tolerate
for one week, or two weeks,

three weeks, but
not an eternity.

There was a
pogrom-like atmosphere.

At every intersection in Cairo,
Jews were symbolically hanged.

Israelis watched
these televised images

from neighboring countries
with growing concern.

I remember my mother sealing
windows with Scotch tape,

because we were going to
be bombed at any moment.

We truly had the feeling
of being in great danger.

We thought there would
be hundreds and hundreds

of dead and wounded.

Beds were being prepared
in the hospitals.

Volunteers dug holes
in football pitches

and public squares for the
thousands of Israeli victims

to be buried in after the war.

I remember the [INAUDIBLE]
neighbors were terrorized.

There were alarms.

And they ran down to the
ground floor of the building,

because there was no shelter.

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

Both countries continued
exchanging fighting words

through songs.

On the Israeli side, Nasser
wants to rip up Rabin.

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

Cairo radios broadcast a
song, which was basically

a call to kill all Israelis--

death to the Jews.

Palestinian leader Ahmad
Shukeiri's watchword,

all Jews into the sea,
was more moderate.

Shukeiri was Nasser's voice.

As you're aware, he was thrown
out of the Palestine movement.

Egyptian television
broadcast made up

images of what the
next war would be like.

We would have done
better to weigh our ideas

and declarations,
try to balance them

according to our capacities
and our own interests.

That's certain.

I was 11 then.

And I felt that this was a war
to save its very existence.

That's how they
presented things to us.

And of course, on
the radio, we also

heard Arabs who said that
this time they would win.

It was scary.

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

One could very often hear the
phrase, "exterminate Israel,"

on radios and televisions.

The word exterminate
referred to the Holocaust.

And people were really
expecting another Holocaust.

We are always afraid we'll
be thrown into the sea,

or be hated, or be exterminated.

So every day we
experience the Holocaust

as if it could happen
in the next few minutes.

The country was so
small and so narrow.

On the eve of the
Six-Day War, we really

thought that could happen.

You know what we called
the borders of Israel?

The borders of Auschwitz.

We were overwhelmed by a
real sense of agony fed

by the Syrians and Jordanians
that Israel would vanish.

In Israel, an agony
difficult to describe arose.

We said, we're
going to disappear.

And the army officers
turned to Eshkol

and said to him, what
are you waiting for?

Prime Minister Levi Eshkol
warned General Yitzhak Rabin,

a hero of the 1948
Arab-Israeli War,

we cannot start a war without
a green light from America.

Eshkol also had to confront his
Defense Minister General Moshe

Dayan.

Dayan had fought in the ranks of
the Haganah from the age of 14,

had held the highest offices
during the war of '48,

including Army Chief of
Staff during the Suez War.

Rabin closeted
himself with Dayan

and Menachem Begin,
the opposition leader,

then told Levi Eshkol that
the country had no choice.

We must attack without delay
to avoid being swept away.

Eshkol, with little
military experience,

was outnumbered and allowed
himself to be convinced,

siding with Dayan.

As soon as Dayan joined
the government with people

like Begin, who was the leader
of the opposition party,

it was the first time
such a thing had happened.

And it was clear we
were headed for war.

On the 5th of June,
over 400 planes

from the Egyptian Air Force
were destroyed in three hours.

The head of the Air
Force, General Weizman,

called his spouse to say,
we've just won the war.

A little later, a land
offensive took place

in the Sinai and the Gaza Strip.

70,000 men and 700
Israeli army tanks

attacked the Egyptian forces
stationed in the Sinai.

Deprived of Air
Force reinforcement,

they could not stand
up to the onslaught.

The next day, the
Israeli army easily

occupied the Sinai Desert.

The fact that we
paralyzed the Egyptian Air

Force in the first
hours of the war

showed how the war would end.

Most of all, there was the
euphoria of still being alive,

surviving.

We survived.

We're here.

We really experienced
it as a true threat

to our survival, an
existential threat.

Then later, there were
theories that it was just

a huge bluff, things like that.

It was confirmed by historians.

We found out that the
authorities, our leaders,

knew very well our existence
wasn't in any danger.

They said we were threatened
with extermination,

and I believed it.

The fact that they
played on that fear

says a lot about
the Israeli leaders.

The only reason why the
Six-Day War was declared

is because our generals
estimated the Egyptian Army was

very weak.

And it was the right time
to attack them and conquer

territory.

It's the truth.

To say there was a threat
of examination-- everyone

knows that was a lie.

My father said so right away.

General Matti Peled,
father of Nurit Peled,

later declared, all those
tales about the enormous danger

we faced because of
our cramped country

were never taken
into account during

our pre-battle calculations.

To pretend that the Egyptian
Forces gathered at our border,

could threaten the
existence of Israel

is an insult to intelligence
and to our army.

It was only after four
years that other truths

emerged about the Six-Day War.

Mordechai Bentov, Minister
of Labor and Reconstruction--

all those tales about
the risk of extermination

were invented piecemeal and
exaggerated after the fact

to justify annexing
new Arab territories.

General Ezer
Weitzman-- there never

was danger of extermination.

This theory was never envisioned
before the Six-Day War.

Menachem Begin-- Nasser wasn't
really going to attack us.

We should be honest
with ourselves.

We decided to attack.

Moshe Dayan-- the idea that
Syria threatened Israel

before the War of
'67 is just a joke.

Yitzhak Rabin-- I don't
think Nasser wanted war.

The divisions he sent
to Sinai wouldn't

have been enough to launch
an attack against Israel.

He knew it.

And we knew it.

We didn't experience
it like that,

nor did the population,
nor the army,

and certainly not
the politicians.

There really was
an anxious moment.

War was inevitable.

It didn't go the way we
imagined it, because Hussein got

involved in that vicious cycle.

We tried to convince Hussein
not to participate in the war.

That was his mistake.

After Cairo radio stations
announced great victories,

King Hussein's Jordanian
forces entered the war

and attacked West Jerusalem.

If he hadn't intervened,
it would have been exactly

like the war of '56.

As soon as he intervened,
it became a global war

with all our
neighbors, resulting

in the conquest of territory.

It wasn't in Israel's
interest to occupy the West

Bank, because of its large
population and even less so,

Jerusalem.

But the military has
declared it would

be possible to take
East Jerusalem,

and that in 1948, they'd made a
mistake in not keeping the Old

City.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

In the West Bank, the
war that happened in 1967

was not much of a war, really.

As far as we were concerned,
the Israeli soldiers

literally walked through.

And there was very little,
if any, resistance.

The Palestinians were unarmed,
untrained for fighting.

Moshe Dayan and
Yitzhak Rabin went

into the lanes of the Old
City and to the Wailing Wall.

Jerusalem had been cut
in two since the 1948 War

and the proclamation
of the state of Israel.

I know from several
sources that Dayan

wasn't keen on the idea
of conquering Jerusalem,

but the pressure was too great.

Moshe Dayan was convinced the
United States and the USSR

would insist the fighting
end, and that there

would be a repeat of 1956,
stopping Israel in its tracks.

He decided to advance into the
West Bank and the Syrian Golan

without the approval of military
headquarters or the government.

We didn't plan on taking
the Golan Heights.

But there was enormous pressure
from the army to do so,

to end gunfire from the
heights onto villages.

So they decided to
occupy the Golan.

And at that moment, the war's
character completely changed,

and it became a general war.

On June the 10th at 6:00
PM, a general ceasefire

was proclaimed.

Israel had complete victory.

On the same June the
10th, the 600 or so

Palestinian inhabitants
of the neighborhood

across from the war were
told they had to leave.

The Esplanade would be raised
along with many Arab houses.

On June the 18th, without
waiting for its legislature

to make a move, Israel annexed
71 square kilometers east

of the city.

Jerusalem was reunified.

The conquest of Jerusalem
wasn't required for defense.

It was a romantic conquering.

And romanticism in politics
is something that's dangerous.

In six days, Israel had occupied
the West Bank, the Arab quarter

of Jerusalem, the Syrian
Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip,

and the Sinai up
to the Suez Canal.

A million Arabs were now
under Israeli administration.

And the Israeli state went
from 21,000 to 102,000

square kilometers.

After the Battle
of Jerusalem, we

were taken to see
the Wailing Wall.

And when I got to
the wall, I saw

people, all secular
like me, saying

that this was a sacred place.

Sacred places didn't matter
much to the first Zionists.

And suddenly, this big shock.

We're back.

It belongs to us.

It was so easy.

Only God could have
done this miracle.

We felt like the
Messiah had arrived.

It attracted a lot
of young people

who were religious and
became nationalists

or even young people who
weren't religious to start with.

What's certain is that
all the religious people

became right wingers.

This crushing victory would
change the course of history.

Some saw it as a religious
experience-- messianic.

I remember that in spite of my
good communist upbringing, when

they said the Old City of
Jerusalem had been conquered,

I repeated and
used with emotion,

we've conquered the Old City.

I don't think I said liberated.

I had been so brainwashed.

I participated in the
nationalist religious orgy

that broke out then, that
everyone participated in.

I was only 14.

I felt we had come
home, and that we

had liberated the territories.

And the most dramatic
thing is that I don't

remember seeing even one Arab.

There was a new
wave of refugees,

this time from the West Bank,
especially around Jordan.

The refugees of '67
joined those from '48.

150,000 people departed.

It magnified the problem
that was already there.

When I returned during
the summer of 1967,

it was quite a shock
for me, since my house

was on the line separating East
Jerusalem from West Jerusalem.

But that line wasn't
there when I returned.

From the garden of my
house, I looked at Israel

as if it were another
world, a part of this world

that I didn't know,
except through the stories

my mother had told me.

In '67, I was
already 16 years old.

And I had no information
and no direct knowledge

of the part of Palestine
that became Israel.

Because after 1948, there
was a very stiff border.

And we were not able
to cross, of course.

No one thought it would
last such a long time.

We thought it was temporary.

The government had confirmed
that the territories

were their ace to play and
future peace negotiations.

We thought there
would be peace soon

and we would get along with the
inhabitants of Judea/Samaria.

Since the Golan was empty,
Sinai as well, we'd get along.

And all would be well.

Levi Ashkol was the
first to say we'd

occupy the territories
for a short while,

keeping them as a bargaining
chip in the negotiations

before returning them.

I don't think at all that
Levi Eshkol ever imagined

we'd be there for 50 years.

There was the feeling
that it would end quickly,

that it would change.

And things would soon
go back to normal.

And of course, we soon
understood it wouldn't.

On September the 1st, Arab
countries met in Khartoum

and signed a Solidarity
Charter after the Six-Day War.

It called for constant
war against Israel

to regain the
territories lost, using

Arab oil as a diplomatic
weapon and defending

the Palestinian people's rights.

Paragraph three of the charter
was noted as the three nos--

no to peace with Israel,
no to recognizing Israel,

and no to negotiations.

The situation stalled.

Because there were
no Arab partners

during the negotiations,
otherwise the situation

might have been
resolved quickly.

Resistance to the occupation
didn't immediately start.

Initially, the Palestinians
were in shock, traumatized,

paralyzed.

They didn't quite
know what to do.

Then we had the idea
of an enlightenment,

liberal occupation as if such
a thing was ever possible.

Let's invent the concept
of a liberal occupation

and see what happens.

After '67, a messianic
Zionism with religious roots

flourished here, whose
goal wasn't the freedom

or independence of
the people of Israel,

but to bring the
Jewish people back

to the path of
their biblical past.

This new generation proclaimed,
we are the new pioneers.

However, their
motivations were different

from the first pioneers
who were not religious.

But the old Zionists were tired
and viewed this new generation

with concern, but were rather
satisfied all the same.

There it's the new generation.

It left a vacuum where a
small, but very dynamic

minority group of settlers
made a place for themselves

and tried to force Israel
to stay in the territories

and annex them.

The first colonists appeared
during this transition phase.

A few dozen fanatic, religious,
nationalist militants

saw the victory, especially the
liberation of the Wailing Wall,

as a miracle signifying
the return of the Messiah.

In March 1968, they created
the first colony near Hebron,

led by the Rabbi Moshe Levinger.

That's how everything started.

Shimon Peres was complicit with
the first wave of colonization,

given that there was a fairly
extremist wing in the Labor

Party.

Obviously, we should
have said from the start,

out of the question.

We didn't come here for that.

We don't have the right.

International law forbids it.

There are strict rules.

Suddenly in '67, we became an
occupying colonialist society.

That changes society.

We couldn't behave in
the same way anymore.

It's at that point that
Israel really changed.

The government's
priority should have

been to make peace
with the Arabs,

integrate into the region.

Finally, obtain peace.

The Israel before
'67 and after '67

are two completely
different societies,

two different countries.

I didn't say two
different populations.

On the 4th of February
1969, Yasser Arafat

became president of the PLO.

Israelis considered the
National Palestinian

Charter adopted in Cairo as
a true declaration of war.

Because it defined the
organization's goal

to annihilate the state of
Israel through armed combat.

Two weeks later, Prime
Minister Levi Eshkol

died in February 1969, struck
down by a heart attack.

Golda Meir replaced
him as prime minister.

Known for her firmness
and inflexibility,

she was Minister
for Foreign Affairs

under Ben-Gurion,
who said of her,

she is the only man
in my government.

Golda Meir said a
lot of stupid things.

For example, the Palestinians
weren't a people.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

The start of a
political blindness

that grew more and more deeply.

At the beginning of the
1970s, the Occupation Forces

started expelling Palestinians
from their land and building

colonies.

From then on, Israel managed
the occupied territories

directly and militarily.

All services were handled by the
military-- health, education,

agriculture, employment.

We slowly began to realize
what occupation would mean.

And then in time, we
realized that occupation

would mean, most
important of all,

that the land would
slowly be taken.

And Israeli settlements
would be built on it.

Those who think these people
will put up with the situation

much longer where
they're considered

second-class citizens
are much mistaken.

Palestinians got used to
it, but for how much longer?

Suicide attacks have
destroyed the peace faction.

We've become mute.

It's hard to defend
peace when buses

are blowing up in the streets.

The way the
Palestinians have chosen

to fight, the methods
they've chosen,

violence that leads
to nothing, or apathy

that leads to doing nothing.

They still have a lot
to learn so that they

can organize an
intelligent, effective fight

against the occupation.

On the Palestinian side,
without saying so openly,

many of our leaders have adapted
to the situation in which we

find ourselves today.

This extremely depressing,
disturbing, and deplorable

situation.

But our leaders are ready
to continue living this way.

Israeli society
thinks that if you

don't talk about the
occupation, it doesn't exist.

It's happening a half
hour from our home

and yet, most Israelis
have never been there.

They aren't interested
in what's going on there.

It's extremely difficult
to make things change,

to lift the veil that
the Israelis have

drawn over everything
about the occupation.

We have negotiated
in vain for 25 years,

because colonization
has just kept on growing

a quarter of a century.

And look at the result.

The only thing the
Israelis do is cover it up.

But, yes, yes, of course.

We'll discuss it.

We will sign.

We'll shake hands.

All that so people won't notice
that the bulldozers continue

to work.

There is no serious policy
on stopping the occupation.

According to Israeli statistics,
the Jewish colony population

in the West Bank continued to
increase by about 4% per year,

becoming about 400,000 people.

You can't talk
about the $400,000

and not take into account
the 300,000 Jewish settlers

in Jerusalem.

Sorry.

The occupation of
East Jerusalem is

no different from
any other occupation.

There are 700,000 settlers.

And there is no
government leader.

And there never will
be, who will decide

to evacuate 700,000 settlers.

That's the reason
why people like

me no longer believe in the
solution of two states side

by side.

The solution of two states
in the classic sense

will never happen,
except by a miracle.

It's not just Elias Sanbar
or myself saying this.

I think anyone who observes
what's going on can see that.

For years, we, myself included,
have asked the question,

does Israel really want peace?

And as talks and
meetings continue,

I started to understand
and ask myself

another question, which
is, can Israel make peace?

I don't think peace
is impossible.

I'm afraid we won't want it.

And the more time passes,
the more complicated

it gets, until people will
say, we don't need it anymore.

When I joined the
resistance, I was 20.

I'm now 70.

If I thought there was no
solution to this problem,

why would I have kept hitting
my head against the wall?

No conflict is eternal,
even though this one seems

to have lasted an eternity.

It's gone on for over a century.

Where I come from in East
Jerusalem, none of us

have citizenship.

We don't have passports.

We Palestinians-- we have
no citizenship anywhere.

I have no country.

I'm not Israeli.

I'm not Jordanian.

I'm not Egyptian.

I'm not Tunisian.

I'm not French.

I'm not Italian.

I'm nothing.

Will I go back to
Palestine one day?

No, it's too late
for my generation.

Too late.

My Palestine no longer exists.

We feel as though we have been
erased, that we never existed.

We were kicked out.

We were thrown out
of the borders.

And what happened, happened.

No one can erase it.

It happened.

Will wisdom and
moderation overcome

fanaticism and stupidity?

I don't know.

An historian, says Hegel,
is the prophet of the past.

War starts when
diplomacy has failed.

And it's time for weapons.

I've always viewed the
wars in Israel as a war

without end with a few pauses.

When you think about it, it's a
conflict that has never ended.

And the cycle sure
isn't over yet.

Knowing he was
ill, Theodor Herzl

had written a letter to
his successors, saying,

don't make mistakes
when I'm dead.

He died in 1904, aged 44.

Herzl had asked to be
buried in Palestine when

the Jewish people have founded
an independent state there.

45 years later on
August the 17th,

1949, he was buried at
Mount Herzl in Jerusalem,

along with his parents
and his sister, Pauline,

but not his youngest
daughter, Trude Norman,

who had died in the
Theresienstadt concentration

camp.