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(somber orchestral music)

(audience applauding)

- This signing of the Israeli-Palestinian

Declaration of Principle here today, it's not so easy,

neither for myself as a soldier in Israel's war,

nor for the people of Israel,

who are watching us with great hope.

We have come from a people

that has not known a single year, not a single month

in which mothers have not wept for their sons.

We who have fought against you, the Palestinians,

we say to you today we have no desire for revenge.

We harbor no hatred towards you.

We, like you, are people,

people who want to build a home, to plant a tree, to love,

live side-by-side with you in dignity.

Our inner strength, our high moral values,

have been derived for thousands of years

from the Book of the Books, in which we read:

To every thing there is a season,

and a time to every purpose under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die;

a time to kill and a time to heal;

a time to weep and a time to laugh;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time of war, and a time of peace.

Ladies and gentlemen, the time for peace has come.

(audience applauding)

(soaring orchestral music)

(sharp bagpipe music)

- [Narrator] The sound of bagpipes reverberated

inside the Old City of Jerusalem.

British soldiers were parading for their very last time.

Slowly, they made their way,

stopping briefly in front of 6 Or Hahayim Street,

the home of the senior rabbi of the Jewish Quarter,

Mordechai Weingarten.

There, a British major, the officer in command,

took out an ornamental iron key

and presented it to the rabbi.

Since the year 70 AD, the major told him,

the key to the gates of Jerusalem

has not been in Jewish hands.

Rabbi Weingarten trembled as he accepted it.

He then chanted the Shehechiyanu blessing.

"Blessed art thou our Lord,

"who has permitted us to reach this day."

Just six months earlier,

the stage had been set for this historic transfer of power.

The United Nations had scheduled a vote

on whether Palestine should be partitioned

into separate Arab and Jewish states.

There was tension in the air as the Arab delegates,

led by Amir Feisal of Saudi Arabia, awaited the results.

The Arabs were opposed to partition,

maintaining that their 700-year presence in Palestine

superseded any Jewish claims to the land.

They demanded a single Arab state,

with Jews being relegated minority status there.

The Zionists claim Palestine is their historic homeland,

Eretz Israel, the land of Israel.

They cited a continuous Jewish presence there

for 3,500 years.

They argued that there were already numerous Arab states.

Declaring another, especially one headed by

the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem,

who was an enthusiastic supporter of Hitler,

would be opening the doors to another Holocaust.

The vote was set to start.

The elder statesman of the Zionist movement,

Dr. Chaim Weizmann, desperately wanted to witness the vote

from the UN's visitor gallery.

However, when his colleagues

went to pick him up at his hotel,

he was in bed, too overcome with emotion to attend.

- [Man] Soviet Union, yes.

United Kingdom, abstain.

- [Narrator] As the roll call begin,

the proceedings were momentarily interrupted.

A piercing cry came from the gallery.

(speaking foreign language)

"Oh Lord, please save us."

- The United States.

- Yes. - Yes.

Yemen.

No.

- The resolution of the Ad Hoc Committee for Palestine

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

(audience applauding)

- I vividly remember the moment.

I remember the counting of the vote from the old radio.

And I didn't understand the yes, no, abstain.

I didn't understand at the time,

but I could see at the end of it

kind of a belief on the faces of my parents.

And immediately, some hundred yards

from my parents' residence in the kibbutz,

the elderly members were dancing until after midnight.

(lively accordion music)

(bright orchestral music)

- [Narrator] As the news was released around the world,

Jews reacted with jubilation.

But as Jews celebrated,

the reaction of David Ben-Gurion,

the chairman of the Jewish Agency in Palestine,

was quite another story.

- He was the only sad person in the midst of us

because the streets were full with happy people dancing

and chanting and extremely happy.

And is too there's a sad person, and he says,

"Now they are dancing, tomorrow they will be fighting.

"Now we are singing, tomorrow we shall see the blood."

He didn't have the slightest illusion

about what's going to happen immediately

in the wake of the declaration.

(military percussion music)

- [Narrator] The Jews of Palestine

were sorely in need of large sums of money

for weapons to compete with the Arab armies

they knew they would soon be fighting.

The Jewish Agency knew it would have to turn to

the American Jews for the help it required.

Ben-Gurion wanted to go himself

to enlist the support of the American Jewish community,

but Golda Meir argued that his presence

was vital in Palestine.

After a vote was taken

by the leadership of the Jewish Agency,

it was decided to send Mrs. Meir to the United States.

Upon arriving in New York,

she attracted the attention of a US Customs official.

While inspecting her bags,

he noted that she was carrying almost no money.

- [Customs Official] How are you gonna make it here

if all you have is a $10 bill?

- [Golda] Oh, don't worry.

In America, I have a very big family.

- [Narrator] A few days later,

Mrs. Meir gave an impassioned speech

before a group of American Jewish leaders.

- [Golda] What are Jews in the United States thinking of?

Are you with us or are you not?

Do you consider it your problem or do you consider it

that because these Jews have come into Israel,

that they are our Jews

and you have nothing to do with them anymore?

That's all that I am asking of you tonight.

- [Narrator] Mrs. Meir returned to Israel with $50 million,

more than twice the amount Ben-Gurion had told her

was needed for the war effort.

Greeting her at the airport,

he said one day historians would refer to her

as the woman who saved Israel.

Ironically, Ben-Gurion did not let her into

the new cabinet he was forming.

For weeks after her return,

she sat at home with little to do.

Finally, she wrote a letter to the Jewish Agency head

expressing her frustration.

She signed the letter, "The woman who saved Israel."

(explosion booming)

(siren wailing)

The violence that David Ben-Gurion predicted

was now becoming a reality.

The residents of Kfar Etzion,

a village just a few miles south of Jerusalem

founded by Orthodox Polish Jews,

a large number of them Holocaust survivors,

were surrounded by soldiers of the Arab Legion.

One of those survivors wrote about their predicament.

- [Man] At least we can rejoice at being able to do

what the youth of ghettos of Europe could not do:

Rise up against our enemies with our arms in our hands.

(gun firing)

Eliza Footwonger, Kfar Etzion's wireless operator,

sent out a desperate plea for help.

(gun firing)

(explosion booming)

As Arab soldiers overran the entrance to the village,

Footwonger cabled a final message.

(telegraph machine beeping)

A few minutes later, the young Polish-born radio operator

waved a bloody white sheet from the roof,

which she then attached to the radio's antenna.

The message went out that they had surrendered.

The Arab commander ordered the 50 survivors of Kfar Etzion

to line up in the center of the Kibbutz

and to give up their weapons.

He also told them

that they were to pose for a photo of the surrender.

Instead of a camera, the soldiers pulled out machine guns.

(guns firing)

When the gunfire ended, only four were still alive.

In all, 148 people were killed trying to defend Kfar Etzion.

For the Arabs, the attack on Kfar Etzion

was retribution for Deir Yassin.

The radical Jewish underground groups

the Irgun and the Stern Gang

had struck the Arab village close to Jerusalem,

killing 245 Arabs, most of them women and children.

A 12-year-old survivor

spoke to investigators after the attack.

- [Girl] The Jews ordered our family to line up

and then began shooting.

The bullets hit my four-year-old sister Khadri in the head,

my eight-year-old sister Sami in the check,

and seven-year-old brother in the chest.

- [Narrator] The Jewish Agency

immediately denounced the action,

expressing its deep disgust and regret.

The chief rabbi of Palestine, Isaac Herzog,

was so horrified by the events that he issued a herem,

an order excommunicating those Jews

who took part in the massacre.

In a last-ditch effort to avert a war

with Transjordan and a fight with the Arab Legion,

the best-equipped and most highly-trained

of all of the Arab armies, the Jewish Agency sent Golda Meir

on a secret mission to meet with King Abdullah.

In an earlier meeting, the king had promised Mrs. Meir

not to join any Arab attack on the Jews.

He had told her that he wanted peace

more than anything else.

Disguised as a Muslim wife accompanying her husband,

wearing the traditional dark

and voluminous robes of an Arab woman,

she and one of the Jewish Agency's Arab experts, Ezra Danin,

traveled to see the king.

They were accompanied by

one of Abdullah's most trusted servants,

who acted as their driver.

During the dangerous three-hour journey,

they were forced to stop for inspection

at numerous Legion checkpoints.

Whenever this happened,

the driver leaned out of the car window

and whispered his name.

Upon hearing that, the Arab Legion soldiers

would then salute and wave the car forward.

They arrived at their meeting place with no problems.

Mrs. Meir knew something was wrong

as soon as Abdullah entered the room.

He was pale and seemed under great strain.

He immediately told his visitors

that some sort of compromise was necessary

if a war was to be averted.

- [Abdullah] Why are you in such a hurry

to proclaim your state?

- [Golda] Your Majesty, I don't think that a people

who have waited 2,000 years

can be described as being in a hurry.

- [Narrator] Mrs. Meir tried to mollify the king

as she continued.

- [Golda] Your Majesty, if there is not war,

the Jewish Agency will accept the frontiers

drawn up by the United Nations,

which include the internationalization of Jerusalem.

- [Narrator] But Abdullah could not be pacified.

- [Abdullah] I am one of several now.

I cannot make decisions alone.

- [Narrator] However, before the meeting came to an end,

he made a final observation to Mrs. Meir.

- [Abdullah] I believe with all my heart

that divine providence has brought you back here,

restoring you to the Semitic East,

which needs your knowledge and initiative.

Conditions are now difficult, but be patient.

- [Narrator] The king would not live long enough

to make good on his promise to Mrs. Meir.

(dramatic orchestral music)

- [Reporter] In Amman, capital of the Jordan,

there is mourning in the palace

and great sorrow in the hearts of the people.

The king who made them a nation is no more.

To the Old City of Jerusalem

King Abdullah went for the Friday prayers.

Among his own people, he walked unguarded and unafraid.

But there were those who hated him.

And as the king entered the mosque to pray,

a young fanatic killed the one man

who might've brought peace to the Middle East.

- [Narrator] In anticipation of the war

that was about to begin,

Arab countries neighboring Palestine closed their borders.

Jews living in those countries

were filled with anxiety about their future.

A young woman, Shula Cohen,

born in Jerusalem but living in Beirut

since her arranged marriage

to a prominent Lebanese-Jewish businessman,

was preparing to do the most difficult thing imaginable

for a parent: send her children away.

- I told them, "Look, children, you are going to go

"to your grandmother for a few weeks.

"Don't worry."

And so, I saw the youngest one beginning to cry.

"I don't want to go!"

And I tried to calm him.

I told him, "Don't worry.

"In two weeks, I'm going to come and to take you back."

(sighing) But inside of myself,

my heart was tearing to pieces

because I know I'm lying to them

and they don't know that I made them

the pioneers of the Aliyah

so that everybody will see

that I sent the first two of myself

so that I can take others and send them to Israel.

- [Narrator] Only a few hours after the British

sailed away from Palestine forever,

a ceremony took place in the main hall

of the Tel Aviv Museum that inaugurated the State of Israel.

- [Man] (speaking foreign language)

- [Translator] Accordingly,

we members of the People's Council,

representatives of the Jewish community of Eretz Israel

and of the Zionist movement,

are here assembled on the day of the termination

of the British mandate over Eretz Israel and,

by virtue of our natural and historic right

and on the strength of the resolution

of the United Nations General Assembly,

hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state

in Eretz Israel to be known as the State of Israel.

(audience applauding)

- [Narrator] A few moments later, David Ben-Gurion,

acting as prime minister

and defense minister of the new government,

signed Israel's Declaration of Independence.

That night, the new prime minister was awakened twice,

first to be told that President Truman

had officially recognized the new State of Israel,

the second time to make an urgent radio broadcast

to the United States.

As he started his radio address,

the Egyptian air force began bombing Tel Aviv.

(bombs exploding)

- [David] All decent people throughout the world

will help us in our difficult task.

We know we are facing great danger.

At the time that I am speaking,

Tel Aviv is being bombed by hostile planes.

- [Narrator] After the broadcast,

Ben-Gurion rushed out to inspect damage in the city

and to gauge the reaction of its residents.

As he drove through Tel Aviv,

he looked into people's faces

and wondered, "Are they afraid?"

When he returned home, he wrote two words in his diary:

(speaking foreign language), "We shall stand."

(bombs exploding)

Fighting broke out on all fronts.

Lebanese troops were advancing from the north,

Syrian, Iraqi, the Transjordian-controlled

Arab Legion forces were moving in from the East,

and the Egyptian army was coming in from the south.

(gun firing)

Israel's back was to the sea.

(explosions booming)

During the first weeks of the War of Independence,

the Israeli Air Force

consisted of just four World War II-era Messerschmitts

bought in Czechoslovakia.

The planes had arrived by boat, unassembled in crates.

Mechanics hastily reassembled the aircraft,

but did not have time to check or test the planes

before putting them into service.

They barely had enough time to paint the Star of David

of the new Israeli Air Force on the sides of the planes.

More aircraft would soon arrive from overseas.

B-17 Flying Fortresses, heroic bombers of World War II,

were flown to Israel illegally from a base in the Atlantic

by a group of American volunteers.

Volunteers played a crucial role

in the early days of the War of Independence.

Some 5,000 from the US, Canada, England,

South Africa, even Finland, became known as Mahal,

a Hebrew acronym for volunteers from abroad.

On one occasion, a crew flying across the Mediterranean

to deliver a B-17

was directed by an Israeli radio controller

to bomb Cairo before landing in Israel.

The crew carried out its first mission

without ever seeing the country for which it was fighting.

Women were also an integral part of the combat effort.

- [Woman] (speaking foreign language)

- [Translator] In the Palmach, there was a lot of equality.

This was a kibbutz-affiliated fighting force,

and in the kibbutz there was full equality.

Now, of course, here and there, there was one chauvinist.

But I have no problems with chauvinists.

Open your mouth and say you're a chauvinist

and I'll slap you.

- [Narrator] While the Israel Defense Forces

managed to secure large parts

of the western portion of Jerusalem,

they were losing the battle for the Jewish Quarter.

(explosions booming)

The Arab Legion pounded the quarter with artillery,

driving its defenders into an ever-decreasing area.

The city famous for its cluster of synagogues

was being reduced to rubble.

Many of its holiest buildings

and oldest synagogues were destroyed,

among them the Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue,

named for the prophet Elijah, who, according to legend,

joins every minyan or quorum of 10 people praying there.

The Ben Zakkai Synagogue, which housed the shofar

that would sound the arrival of the messiah.

(flames crackling)

From Mount Zion, a young commander,

Yitzhak Rabin, watched in desperation.

- [Yitzhak] I witnessed a shattering scene.

A delegation was emerging from the Jewish Quarter

bearing white flags.

I was horrified to learn that it consisted of rabbis

and other residents on their way

to hear the Arab Legion's terms for their capitulation.

That same night, the Jewish Quarter surrendered.

- [Narrator] One of the defenders was a young English woman,

22-year-old Esther Cailingold, who had joined the Haganah

and was critically wounded during the battle.

She was taken by the Arab Legion

to a hospital in the Armenian Quarter.

With no morphine left to treat her,

Esther lay in great pain and racked by high fever.

A wounded man next to her offered her a cigarette.

"I can't," she told him.

"It's Shabbat."

Shortly after that, she died of her wounds,

but not before leaving behind a letter to her parents.

- [Esther] I'm writing to beg you

that whatever happens to me, take it in the spirit I want.

We had a difficult fight.

I have tasted hell.

But it has been worthwhile

because I'm convinced the end will see a Jewish state

and all of our longings.

I have lived my life fully,

and very sweet it has been to be in our land.

I hope one day you will all come

and enjoy the fruits for which we have been fighting.

Be happy and remember me only in happiness.

- [Narrator] The loss of the Jewish Quarter,

together with the Western Wall of the Second Temple,

the Kotel, was a bitter blow for the new state.

This was the spiritual center of Jewish Jerusalem.

After the surrender, in groups of twos,

the 1,300 residents of the Jewish Quarter

began their departure.

One of them, a hundred-year-old man,

had not been outside of the Old City for 90 years.

Not only had the Old City been lost,

now all of Jerusalem was under siege.

The Arabs had effectively cut off all roads to the city,

and attempts to get food

and other goods through were failing.

Other parts of the fledgling state were also threatened.

The Egyptian army was just 25 miles from Tel Aviv,

and supplies were running out all along the front.

- We were always saving some of our food.

At every breakfast, we were told that we are saving food,

we are eating less amounts of food,

in order to gather some food for Jerusalem,

which was under siege.

And I had a friend of my age at that time in Jerusalem

and I always thought of having half an egg

and that the other half goes to (inaudible) in Jerusalem.

- [Narrator] The Haganah did have some limited success

in reopening the main artery from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,

but that did not stop the Arabs

from attacking Israeli supply and civilian convoys

traveling this route.

In one of the worst attacks,

77 nurses and doctors on their way

to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus were slaughtered.

(somber piano music)

In addition to Jerusalem,

the small communities in the northern part of the country

were especially vulnerable to assault.

- [Woman] (speaking foreign language)

- [Translator] After two convoys were attacked

on their way to Manara, there was a very big problem

regarding the needs of the children.

There was a very bitter argument among the members.

"What should we do with the kids?

"Should we evacuate them?"

We decided that if we received an order,

then, yes, we would evacuate the children.

This was a very special operation

because there wasn't a road to take them away.

We couldn't do it by car.

So, we prepared the luggage for the kids,

and at night they were spirited away.

They had to pass through Kiryat Shmona,

which was then in Arab hands.

In order to make it to Kfar Giladi,

they had to go through dangerous territory.

It took an entire night to arrive safely at Kfar Giladi.

This was very traumatic for us at the time.

(truck engines rumbling)

- [Narrator] One night,

on a reconnaissance mission near Latrun,

Palmach commander Amos Chorev steered a jeep

carrying Colonel David "Mickey" Marcus,

a hero of the Normandy invasion during World War II

who had come to Israel as a volunteer.

On a bluff some 400 feet high,

they could make out a road to Jerusalem

bypassing the surrounding Arab villages.

Looking at the mountains before them, Chorev commented,

"If only we could find a way through there,

"we'd have another way of getting to Jerusalem."

"Why not," replied the American.

"We got across the Red Sea, didn't we?"

Wasting no time, they brought their idea to Ben-Gurion,

who immediately saw its value

and ordered the necessary manpower and resources.

Thus was born the Burma Road,

which effectively ended the siege of Jerusalem.

But on the eve of its dedication, tragedy struck.

Colonel Marcus left his tent in the middle of the night,

wrapping himself in a sheet to keep warm.

Mistaken as an intruder by a sentry, he was shot and killed.

A few days later, a jeep with a coffin strapped to it

carrying the body of Mickey Marcus

slowly made its way along the Burma Road.

Hundreds of Haganah soldiers saluted it

on the way to Lod Airport.

The body of the war hero

was flown back to the United States,

where burial took place at West Point

with full military honors.

(guns firing)

(explosion booming)

(sirens wailing)

Even with the advent of the Burma Road,

daily life in Jerusalem continued to be extremely difficult.

Hospitals were overcrowded, blood supplies were scarce,

and even burying the dead had become almost impossible.

One famous resident, the Rebbe of Ger,

the leader of the largest Hasidic dynasty

prior to World War II, lay gravely ill.

His followers, fearing that Jerusalem would be overrun,

wanted to move him to Tel Aviv,

but the Rebbe would not hear of it.

- [Rebbe] Our prophet spoke of only two exiles,

and both have already occurred.

I assure you Jerusalem will not fall again.

- [Narrator] A few days later in the heat of the battle,

the Rebbe passed away.

He was buried in the courtyard of his yeshiva in Jerusalem.

The first of a number of UN-sponsored truces

came into effect after almost four weeks of war.

For Israel, the truce came just in time.

The Jewish state could not have held out much longer.

Ben-Gurion was determined to use the ceasefire

to resupply Jerusalem

with desperately-needed food and weapons.

But in addition to the Arabs, the prime minister was facing

his own internal crisis as well.

At the time, the defense of the state

was still in the hands of three military organizations:

the Haganah, with its elite Palmach unit,

the Irgun, and the extremist Stern Gang or Lehi.

Prime Minister Ben-Gurion had ordered

the dissolution of the three organizations

and the creation of the Israel Defense Forces,

encompassing all of the groups.

But the Irgun, led by Menachem Begin,

and the Stern Gang, commanded by Yitzhak Shamir,

ignored the decree.

When the UN-brokered truce was announced,

Begin called it a shameful surrender.

Determined to prove that it had no intentions of disbanding,

the Irgun landed a freighter, the Altalena,

loaded with guns, ammunition, and troops

off the coast of Tel Aviv.

- (speaking foreign language)

- This was when the Irgun brought a ship full of weapons

and almost 2,000 male and female soldiers.

Because of David Ben-Gurion's fears and suspicions,

he feared that those people with the weapons

were planning a putsch

or a coup d'etat against him, God forbid.

Therefore, he decided that the ship must be destroyed

and finally be finished with these people.

- [Narrator] Ben-Gurion summoned

Palmach commander Yigal Allon

and he warned him that his new assignment

would be the toughest he'd ever received.

"This time you may have to kill Jews," he was told.

(guns firing)

In one terrible day's fighting, more than 80 were killed.

For a short period,

Tel Aviv was actually in the hands of the Irgun,

as Allon and his forces were outnumbered in the city.

(explosions booming)

But the Palmach commander

managed to turn the situation around

by landing a quick artillery blow that blew up the Altalena

and deprived the Irgun of the arms it needed

to continue fighting.

The greatest threat to the domestic stability

of the new state had been overcome.

Israel was now able to turn its attention

to international affairs.

Golda Meir arrived in Moscow to become the Jewish state's

first diplomatic representative to the Soviet Union.

She was eager to encounter representatives

of the two-and-a-half-million-member Jewish community

forbidden to immigrate

and suffering from widespread anti-Semitism.

- [Golda] From the beginning,

we had an open house in my rooms on Friday evenings.

Newspapermen came,

Jews and non-Jews from other embassies came,

visiting Jewish businessmen,

but never any Russians and never any Russian Jews.

- [Narrator] But on the Jewish New Year,

when she and her staff arrived at Moscow's main synagogue,

they were overwhelmed

by the crowds they saw waiting outside.

- [Golda] A crowd of close to 50,000 people

was waiting for us.

I couldn't grasp what had happened.

And then it dawned on me.

They had come to demonstrate their sense of kinship

and to celebrate the establishment of the state of Israel,

and I was the symbol of the state for them.

- [Narrator] Eventually, she made her way

into the synagogue.

But even there, the demonstration of affection continued.

People kept coming over to touch her hand

or even stroke or kiss her dress.

And when the service ended,

Mrs. Meir once again found herself

in the middle of an ocean of people.

- [Golda] The crowd still surged around me,

stretching out its hands

and saying (speaking foreign language), "Our Golda,"

and "Shalom, shalom," and crying.

All I could say was one sentence in Yiddish.

(speaking foreign language)

"Thank you for having remained Jews."

(guns firing)

- [Narrator] Throughout the final months of 1948,

the fighting renewed between Israel and her Arab neighbors,

interrupted briefly by a series

of UN-sponsored ceasefires and truces.

Yet, by each ceasefire,

in spite of the five-to-one Arab advantage over it,

Israel had managed to either hold on to

or gain more territory

than it had started with before the war.

Beaten and tired, the Arabs agreed to a number of ceasefires

and armistice agreements.

Jerusalem was turned into a divided city.

In exchange for keeping the Negev,

Israel consented to withdraw from

large areas of Egypt's Sinai.

In negotiations with the Transjordanians,

Israel retained the port city of Eilat

and the Gulf of Aqaba.

After a year and seven months,

the War of Independence was over.

Israel was now one geographic unit,

which it had not been at the war's start,

and was in control of territory

from the Upper Galilee in the north to Eilat in the south.

But all of this had come at a great and tragic price.

More than 6,000 Israelis had lost their lives,

1% of the population,

a figure equivalent to the loss of two million Americans.

There were armistice agreements, but no peace treaties.

Not a single Arab nation was willing to accept

even the concept of a Jewish state.

Hundreds of thousands of Arabs

who fled their home were now refugees,

languishing in camps throughout the Arab world.

- In favor of the resolution 37,

against 12,

abstentions nine.

That satisfies the requirement of the charter

of a two-thirds majority,

and I therefore formally declare Israel

admitted to membership in the United Nations.

(audience applauding)

Statehood gave Israel the right to define itself.

In the country's first national elections,

David Ben-Gurion was selected

as Israel's first prime minister

and Dr. Chaim Weizmann as its first president.

The Knesset held its very first session in Jerusalem.

It was a very special moment for the new nation,

the first Jewish parliament in a sovereign Jewish state.

Even as the new government was beginning to wrestle

with the difficult problems

of recovering from a destructive war,

the cultural life of the new country

was also being nurtured.

Museums were being built, universities were expanding,

and a vibrant theater flourished.

- (speaking foreign language)

- (speaking foreign language)

(bright orchestral music)

- [Narrator] One of the most important

and popular cultural institutions

was the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

In the early days of the new state,

the orchestra invited the young American Jewish composer

and conductor Leonard Bernstein to conduct

a series of concerts throughout the country.

In the beginning of a lifelong relationship

with the orchestra, Bernstein was immediately captivated.

- [Leonard] There was a strength and devotion

in these people that is formidable.

They will never let the land be taken from them.

They will die first.

And the country is beautiful beyond description.

- It was an important time for everybody

who was concerned with Israel coming into being.

There was a buoyancy, an energy,

a sense of building and a sense of camaraderie

that was a rebirth for everyone who was there.

A night clerk at a hotel would tell me,

"Why are you playing only the Spring Sonata?

"Why don't you play the 10th Sonata of Beethoven?

"It's so much greater."

The night clerk.

- [Narrator] One of the first acts of the new government

was the Compulsory Education Law,

mandating free education for all children.

But Arabs complained that the Ministry of Education

was slow to act on their needs.

Education was just one area of friction

between Jews and Arabs.

Israel's Declaration of Independence

contained an appeal to Israeli Arabs to preserve peace

and participate in the upbuilding of the state

on the basis of full and equal citizenship,

yet there continued to be resentment and tension

coming from the Israeli Arab community.

Most Arabs just could not see themselves

as Israeli citizens.

- (speaking foreign language)

- [Translator] My grandfather was killed

during the War of Aracho in 1948.

He fought as part of the Palestine Liberation.

How can I be happy?

How can I enjoy or participate in the general happiness

of the birth of Israel?

Because I know on the same date of Israel's independence,

my grandfather was killed

and my uncle was displaced and banished to a refugee camp

outside of his homeland.

The same time when the Israeli nation is celebrating,

I remember the great disaster.

- [Narrator] The question of what to do

with the land and property abandoned

when hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled

during the independence war became a hotly-debated one

within Israel's new government.

The Knesset passed several pieces of legislation

dealing specifically with this issue,

including the Land Acquisition Law,

transferring Arab-owned land for Jewish use.

There were loud protests

from a number of quarters in Israel.

The respected Jewish philosopher Martin Buber

was one who spoke out.

- [Martin] In numerous cases,

land is not expropriated on the grounds of security

but for other reasons,

such as the expansion of existing settlements.

These grounds do not justify a Jewish legislative body

in placing the seizure of land

under the protection of the law.

- [Narrator] Ben-Gurion dismissed the protests.

He argued back that Israel would be more than happy

to place its claims beside those of the Arabs

when a final peace treaty was at hand.

At a United Nations conference

held in Lausanne, Switzerland, in May of 1949,

the United States pressed Israel to accept at least a third

of the more than 700,000 Arabs

the UN estimated were left homeless by the war.

Many of them believed

they were only leaving their homes temporarily

and would return when the hostilities had ended.

- When I left my house in (inaudible) colony,

I came with khaki trousers, short,

and with short shirt, half-sleeve, you know?

And it was summertime, May,

so I didn't expect not to come back very soon.

Next week or 10 days' time, we are going back to our houses.

It took about 50 years now.

We didn't go back to our houses.

- [Narrator] As Israel was being pressured

to repatriate Arab refugees,

the neighboring Arab countries were doing little if anything

to help improve their lot.

With the exception of Transjordan,

they all refused to accept them as citizens,

holding them in refugee camps

as a way to keep the issue alive

in the international community.

The Israeli government refused to accept

even a compromise formula proposed by the United States

that would've allowed in 100,000 refugees.

Israel argued that with all of the Arab states

opposed to its existence,

bringing in tens of thousands of Arab refugees

posed a serious security threat.

While much was being made

of the plight of Palestinian Arab refugees,

very little attention was focused on

the hundreds of thousands of Jews

who had been forced to flee Arab countries.

Most had forfeited their homes, businesses,

bank accounts, and other possessions

and were subjected to harsh and sometimes violent treatment

by their non-Jewish neighbors.

(bell ringing)

In Beirut, Shula Cohen had already began

smuggling Jewish children

from Lebanon and other Arab countries to Israel.

- All the Arab soldiers were already on the borders.

The Arab League was also in Beirut.

I used to make a forum in my house, seven, eight families.

First thing they used to tell me,

"All right, you want our children.

"Why don't you send yours?"

I sent my children first, the two boys.

After, I sent also my daughter.

So, afterwards, they began to me, "Please, Shula."

The first children I smuggled to Israel, to Metula, was 14.

I put them in a jeep.

And afterwards I began to send also with a ship

by boat to Haifa.

And I began to also with the Lufthansa

to send them to Turkey, to Istanbul,

from Istanbul to Israel.

And this is the way

we smuggled the Jews from Arab countries,

to Beirut, and from Beirut to Israel in different ways.

- [Narrator] Providing a safe haven

for Jewish communities under threat

was behind what many consider to be

Israel's most important piece of legislation,

passed by the Knesset in 1950.

- (speaking foreign language)

- [Translator] The Law of Return makes every Jew

around the world a potential citizen of Israel.

Whenever they want to, any Jew who wants to immigrate,

they can realize their desire.

Not only do they become a citizen automatically,

they are also privileged to other rights

that a new immigrant gets,

with housing and help with children and welfare.

- [Narrator] Over a four-year period starting in May 1947,

more than 680,000 Jews arrived in Israel,

doubling the population.

120,000 were Holocaust survivors,

including thousands of orphans

whose parents were murdered in Hitler's death camps.

Some had relatives to go to, but others were all alone.

Acting as a foster parent,

the state found shelter for them in kibbutzim or yeshivas.

(plane engine roaring)

(light Israeli music)

An equally large migration came from Iraq.

Close to 125,000 Iraqi Jews,

threatened by anti-Jewish decrees and violence,

made their way to Israel.

They gave up their nationality and history,

which dated back thousands of years.

- They left their homes in the morning.

They have been on the plane for about three or four hours.

And in the evening they find themselves under tents

with no electricity, no running water, no nothing.

They were relieved to leave Iraq.

But for no one it's easy to leave their comfortable home

and to find themself with the kids

living under tents in wintertime.

But I believe most of the people

realized that this was the only way to do it.

- [Narrator] Israel's independence

led to anti-Jewish riots and murders in Yemen,

home to more than 45,000 Jews.

A massive rescue effort was mounted,

called Operation Magic Carpet.

Planes filled with 500 to 600 people each

flew around the clock

until almost the entire Yemenite community

was safely in Israel.

(plane engine roaring)

Greeting the new immigrants,

Golda Meir was told by one that despite the fact

that he had never seen a plane, he had no fear of flying.

- [Man] Did not the prophet Isaiah tell us,

"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

"They shall mount up with wings of eagles

"and they shall run and not be weary."

(ship horn blowing)

- [Narrator] Keeping up with the pace

and volume of new immigrants who were arriving in Israel

was a daunting task for the young

and economically-challenged country.

- The first years were quite rough.

We had austerity.

We would get one egg a week per person.

We hardly could get any meat at all.

We had family in the country.

Sometimes we would go and bring back a chicken even,

although it was illegal.

But we were young and we believed it will pass.

- [Narrator] With tens of thousands

of new immigrants arriving monthly

and a desperate shortage of housing,

the small tent cities far from employment centers

were replaced by Ma'abarot,

enormous tented camps closer to the urban centers of Israel.

Eventually, immigrants were given the option

of leaving the Ma'abarot and resettling in the Galilee

or the Negev on new moshavim and kibbutzim

that were being created.

They were encouraged to become self-sufficient

by raising their own livestock

and cultivating a variety of quick-ripening crops.

- We knew from nothing, to put it bluntly.

For instance, we didn't know anything agriculture.

We got a plot of land and grew tomatoes.

And to our joy and delight, we were extremely successful.

We had a bumper crop, as everybody else in the country had.

And there's a certain basic rule about agriculture.

If the crops are good, then the prices are bad

because everybody's got it,

and we couldn't sell the tomatoes.

And so, we ate the tomatoes.

I remember very distinctly

supper consisted of very good and nourishing tomato soup,

followed by stuffed tomatoes

cooked and stuffed with chopped-up tomatoes.

At the end, you had tomato pudding,

which was one of the most awfulest things

I've ever tasted in my life.

It took about five years

'til I could look a tomato in the face again after that.

(soft piano music)

- [Narrator] As the country's infrastructure

was being built, Sephardi or Oriental Jews

charged that the Ashkenazi

or European Jewish-dominated leadership

discriminated against them.

These allegations would grow over the years.

The critical issue of who was responsible

for religious and secular life

would also generate controversy decades later.

But at the time, David Ben-Gurion strongly believed in

maintaining what was widely known as the status quo.

- His formula was we want the country

should be a religious tradition,

but they have a right to be religious,

they have a right not to be.

Once he said to me, "I am not religious.

"But, now listen, if I were to be religious,

"I would say my prayers with (inaudible),"

and he made this gesture.

That means he knew the old-fashioned way

of the Polish Hasidim, but he understood that this state

has a long Jewish tradition,

and we have to find a way how to live together.

- [Narrator] In 1952, the longstanding amity

between David Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin

once again came to the fore over the issue

of accepting $865 million from Germany in war reparations.

Begin labeled the reparations blood money.

Ben-Gurion argued, "Let not the murderers of our people

"also be their inheritors."

Elimelech Rimalt of the General Zionists,

who lost his parents in the Holocaust,

dramatically explained his opposition to the Knesset.

His young son had asked him,

"What price will we get for grandpa and grandma?"

Thousands gathered in Tel Aviv's Zion Square

to protest accepting the war reparations agreement.

In Jerusalem, protestors marched up Ben Yehuda Road

toward the Knesset, carrying sacks of stones.

Inside the Knesset building as both sides argued over

whether or not to accept the reparations,

rocks began flying through the windows

from the protestors outside.

The police began lobbing teargas to break up the crowds.

After a 10-hour debate,

the principles of the reparations was approved.

But the continuing rancor over the agreement

forced its signing between Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett

and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer

to be held in secret in Luxembourg.

The 13-minute ceremony was conducted

without either side exchanging a word with the other.

Speaking to Israel radio after the ceremony,

Minister Without Portfolio Pinhas Lavon

justified the government's decision.

- [Pinhas] The $865 million was more money

than Israel received in the past four years

from all sources, public and private.

The people who wanted to exterminate us

are forced to bear some of the burden

involved in creating a new Jewish center of strength

and a place of rebirth.

(soft orchestral music)

Raids by Palestinian terrorists known as fedayeen from Gaza

and elsewhere against Israeli civilians and soldiers

was beginning to spiral out of control.

The dilemma faced by Israel

was summed up by General Moshe Dayan

during the eulogy for a young soldier

killed in one of those terrorist attacks.

- [Moshe] Let us not condemn the murderers today.

What do we know of their fierce hatred for us?

For eight years, they have been living

in refugee camps in Gaza while, right before their eyes,

we have been turning the land

in which they and their forefathers lived into our own.

This is the fate of our generation, to be ready and armed

or to have the sword snatched from our hands

and be cut down.

- [Narrator] 1956 began with high hopes,

as President Dwight Eisenhower

appointed former secretary of the Navy Robert Anderson

to work as a special emissary

in secret negotiations between Egypt and Israel.

But the effort became fruitless

when Egyptian President Abdel Gamal Nasser's

conditions for peace

required the transfer to Egypt of almost the entire Negev,

something Prime Minister Ben-Gurion

nor any other Israeli leader was willing to consider.

What was particularly worrisome to Ben-Gurion

was the massive influx of Soviet arms to Egypt.

He authorized one of his closest advisors, Shimon Peres,

to pursue secret talks with France,

with the intention of procuring French arms

and achieving a balance with Egypt.

While Peres was in France, Nasser startled the world.

(dramatic orchestral music)

- [Reporter] The Suez Canal, lifeline of Europe,

in a dramatic sequence of events became a cause of war.

When President Abdel Nasser announced its seizure by Egypt,

the stage was set for the next move

in the complex Suez situation.

- [Narrator] The day after Nasser's surprise move,

a clear violation of its treaty obligations,

French Minister of Defense Maurice Bourges-Maunoury

met with Peres.

He startled the Israeli by asking

how long would it take for the Israeli army

to cross the Sinai and reach the canal.

What quickly became apparent to Peres

was France's true intentions:

to invite Israel to play a role in Operation Musketeer,

a French-British effort to land troops on the Suez Canal

in order to regain their joint control of it.

Peres reported back to Ben-Gurion,

who was in favor of the idea,

provided that Israel would be able to pursue

its own national interests.

Egypt's seizure of the canal

effectively blocked Israeli merchant ships

from reaching Eilat through the Straits of Tiran,

an act of war.

(suspenseful orchestral music)

The Sinai Campaign began, as Israeli paratroopers

landed on the strategic Mitla Pass, deep in the Sinai.

Within two days, the Israeli army had isolated Gaza

and pushed into Egypt,

just 15 kilometers from the Suez Canal.

The IDF also captured Soviet-made tanks,

armored cars, and other weapons.

They also found hundreds of copies of Hitler's Mein Kampf.

- [Reporter] From a staging area on Cyprus,

airborne troops quickly followed

and established a beachhead at the entrance to the canal.

They were followed by seaborne contingents,

which swiftly controlled the Mediterranean end

of the vital waterway.

- [Narrator] The British-French attack on the canal began

when French paratroopers seized Port Said.

That same day, Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Bulganin

sent a message warning the Israelis

that it was in possession of ballistic missiles.

Worried that the fighting in the Sinai

might escalate even more dangerously

involving the Soviet Union,

the United States demanded the withdrawal

of British and French forces.

While Secretary of State John Foster Dulles

publicly threatened economic sanctions

against the Jewish state,

President Eisenhower sent a private message to Ben-Gurion.

- [Dwight] Despite the present temporary interests

that Israel has in common with France and Britain,

you ought not to forget that the strength of Israel

and her future are bound up with the United States.

- [Narrator] Under enormous pressure,

Israel reluctantly agreed to pull back its forces,

providing Nasser pledged not to block Israeli shipping

or to use Gaza as a staging area for terrorist attacks.

Israel's first war since the War of Independence in 1948

had ended having lasted for less than a week.

172 Israelis lost their lives,

while more than 2,000 Egyptians were killed

and some 6,000 taken prisoners.

While Israel had been victorious in the Sinai Campaign,

it was also subjected to widespread international criticism.

Golda Meir, now Israel's foreign minister,

addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations

and accused the critics of applying a double standard

when it came to the Jewish state.

- [Golda] A comfortable division has been made.

The Arab states unilaterally enjoy the rites of war.

Israel has the unilateral responsibility

of keeping the peace.

- [Narrator] Despite the atmosphere of constant tension

between Israel and its Arab neighbors,

the Jewish state entered a period of relative quiet

during the late-1950s.

Many of the immigrants who had arrived

during the late-1940s and early-'50s

were beginning to succeed.

During this period, one of Israel's greatest achievements

was the irrigation of the Negev Desert.

While agriculture flourished in the northern Galilee,

where the annual rainfall was some 40 inches,

this had not been the case in the Negev,

where precipitation was less than an inch a year.

Through an innovative plan

that became known as the Jordan Valley Project,

the Negev was made to bloom.

(upbeat orchestral music)

The relative tranquility of the late-1950s

also enabled the government of Israel

to expand its diplomatic efforts.

Special attention was paid to developing ties

in the Third World, particularly in Africa.

The greatest champion of this policy was Golda Meir.

She saw parallels between

the persecution of the Jewish people

and the new African nations' long colonial bondage.

(tribal chanting)

Yet her motives for fostering Israel-Africa relations

were not entirely altruistic.

In a speech to the Knesset, the foreign minister explained

why Israel aid to Africa

was so important to the Jewish state.

- [Golda] Our aid to the new countries

is not a matter of philanthropy.

We are no less in need of the fraternity

and friendship of the new nations

than they are of our assistance.

- [Narrator] Israel's own meager economy

precluded it from investing money

in the newly-emerging African nations.

Instead of sending capital, it sent people,

especially medical and farming experts.

Agricultural agreements were reached

with 21 African nations.

Medical teams were sent out all over the African continent.

Israeli physicians organized a hospital in Monrovia,

staffing it with Israeli ophthalmologists

and Israeli-trained Liberian nurses.

Similar projects and schools for the blind

were established in Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Rwanda.

(soft piano music)

Shula Cohen's activities on behalf of Israel

were now beginning to arouse

the suspicions of the Lebanese authorities.

One morning, a Syrian officer

accompanied by several Lebanese soldiers

showed up at her home.

- The Lebanese one, he saw me; he knows me.

He took me like that, he put me on the sofa,

and he says, "Please, Shula, we are not so happy to come,

"but we have an order and we must make a search.

"Please sit here and don't move."

I used to be arrested,

one week, three days, one day, two days,

until I was questioned and go back home.

The officer told my daughter,

"This time mama will not come back so early."

They told me, "Shula, get a dress,

"you're going to come with us."

- [Narrator] Without a trial,

Shula Cohen was convicted of high treason

and sentenced to death.

The authorities, noting that she was a mother of seven,

later commuted her sentence to life in prison.

She would spend the first two years in solitary confinement,

subjected to extreme physical torture

at the hands of her Lebanese jailers.

It seemed like any other day for Ricardo Klement.

At 5:30 p.m., he finished work

at the Mercedes-Benz factory where he was employed.

Usually, he went directly to the bus stop

to catch a ride home to his wife and children.

But that day, he walked over to a nearby flower shop.

When he emerged carrying a bouquet,

those who had been observing him

knew that they had their man.

That night was Adolf Eichmann's 25th wedding anniversary,

proof that the man who had called himself Ricardo Klement

was in fact the infamous Nazi war criminal.

David Ben-Gurion made the astonishing announcement

to the Knesset that Eichmann,

the architect of the Final Solution,

had been found by the Mossad in Argentina,

arrested, and brought to Israel,

and would shortly stand trial for his crimes.

- (speaking foreign language)

- [Narrator] Following the announcement,

Israel was condemned by Argentina

for violating its sovereignty

by kidnapping the war criminal.

- My government deeply regrets

that the Argentine government found it necessary

to bring this question before the Security Council.

- What the foreign minister did not tell the world

was that the Mossad was also plotting to capture

Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Angel of Death at Auschwitz,

who was also living in Buenos Aires.

But as word got out that Eichmann had disappeared,

Mengele went underground,

preventing Israel's security forces

from flying both men to the Jewish state on the same plane.

(dramatic orchestral music)

- [Reporter] In Jerusalem,

the trial of Adolf Eichmann begins.

Entering the bulletproof prisoner's box

is the man charged with the annihilation

of millions of Jews in Nazi death camps.

- [Narrator] The Eichmann trial began

almost a year after his capture and riveted Israelis,

the majority of whom were not Holocaust survivors

and only had the most remote knowledge

of the events of that period.

- It was the first time that Israel

has listened to the evidences from the witness.

And then, at schools, they stopped teaching.

They brought radios into the classes

and then we were forced to ask questions.

We knew that this is the time

you might even get some answers.

- [Narrator] One witness, Yehiel De-Nur,

a writer who used the pen name Ka-Tsetnik,

slang for concentration camp inmate,

began his testimony by describing himself as a prisoner

from planet Auschwitz.

- [Yehiel] I believe with all my heart

that I must continue to bear this name

until the world is aroused

after the crucifixion of the Jewish nation,

just as humanity was once aroused

after the crucifixion of one man.

- [Narrator] A few moments later,

he collapsed at the witness stand.

Unable to continue, he was removed from the courtroom.

During his pretrial interrogations,

Eichmann revealed that at the conclusion

of the 1942 Wannsee Conference, where the so-called

Final Solution of the Jewish Question was organized,

he joined Heydrich and Muller

by drinking, singing, and dancing on the table

to celebrate what they had just planned.

After four months of deliberation,

Adolf Eichmann was found guilty

on all counts of crimes against humanity

and the Jewish people.

Five days later, he was sentenced to death.

On May 31st, 1962, after the death sentence had been upheld

by the Israeli Supreme Court,

Adolf Eichmann went to the gallows.

Two hours later, his ashes were scattered

from a police boat in the Mediterranean

outside of Israel's territorial waters.

It was the first and the last time

the death penalty was used in the Jewish state.

(dramatic orchestral music)

As Egypt, Syria, and Iraq

signed a treaty of alliance in Cairo,

putting their three armies under a unified command,

they proclaimed that the aim of their new union

was the liberation of Palestine.

The only country to remain outside of the ring

of fanatical anti-Israeli Arab states was Jordan.

Its young monarch, Hussein bin Talal,

was following the example of his grandfather Abdullah,

whose assassination he witnessed in 1951.

King Hussein needed peace with Israel

to preserve the stability of his own regime.

For this reason, Israeli leaders and the monarch

began to engage in a secret dialogue.

(bright marching band music)

As the dynamics of the Cold War drove the Soviet Union

and its Communist Bloc allies closer to the Arab world,

Israel made a concerted effort

to strengthen its friendly relations with the United States.

Golda Meir was traveling in Florida at the same time

President John F. Kennedy was vacationing there.

The president, whose administration had just approved

the first-ever shipment of American arms to Israel,

asked Mrs. Meir to visit him.

- [Golda] I can still see him in his rocking chair,

listening very attentively

as I tried to explain why we so desperately needed arms

from the United States.

He looked so handsome and still so boyish

that it was hard for me to remember

that I was talking to the president of the United States,

though I suppose he didn't think

I looked much like a foreign minister either.

- [Narrator] Mrs. Meir discussed the unique challenges

faced by her government.

- [Golda] If we should lose our sovereignty again,

those of us who would remain alive

would be dispersed once more.

But we no longer have the great reservoir we once had

of our religion, our culture, and our faith.

We lost much of that when six million Jews

perished in the Holocaust.

- [Narrator] The president leaned over to her,

took her hand, and reassured her very solemnly.

"I understand, Mrs. Meir.

"Don't worry, nothing will happen to Israel."

A few months later,

President Kennedy was shot to death in Dallas.

But before his assassination, he opened the way

for what was to become Israel's overriding foreign

and defense policy for the next three-and-a-half decades:

to maintain the closest possible links to the United States.

In spite of the ongoing state of tension

with its Arab neighbors,

Israel's economy and cultural life

had continued to develop at a rapid pace.

There was a blossoming film industry

and standing-room-only crowds

at every performance of the Israel Philharmonic.

Israel's theater, led by the Habima and the Cameri,

was becoming one of the most vibrant in the world.

- Stella!

- When I started as an actress,

I started with the National Theater,

who was established by dreamers, idealists from Russia.

And the Russian influence

of the Israel theater was so strong.

They brought with them a Russian tradition, old tradition,

which became very dominant in the theater.

The style of acting was very big, very theatrical.

But then, within the years,

there was established the Cameri Theater,

and the style changed.

Immigration from North Africa, Yemen, Oriental, Jews came.

There was no room anymore for this heavy Russian style.

(bright opera music)

- [Narrator] In July 1962, a 21-year-old tenor from Mexico

signed a three-year contract

with the Hebrew National Opera in Tel Aviv.

For him, it appeared to be a dream contract,

paying him at the rate of 1,000 pounds monthly.

It was only after he arrived that he learned

these were not British but rather Israeli pounds.

It turned out he'd be working at the rate

of roughly $42 a performance.

But in spite of the low pay,

Placido Domingo was enthralled with Israel.

- [Placido] The human and artistic encounters there

probably could not have been equaled anywhere in the world.

One could get as much out of Israel

as one's own mental and spiritual resources allowed.

(boisterous opera music)

- [Narrator] A major development that most took for granted

was the revival of Hebrew

from what had been a dead language to one of vitality.

Nothing underscored this more than the announcement in 1966

that the Nobel Prize for Literature

had been awarded to Israeli novelist Shmuel Yosef Agnon.

After being presented with his award by Sweden's king,

Agnon addressed those assembled for the ceremony.

(audience applauding)

- [Shmuel] Who are my mentors?

First and foremost, they are the sacred scriptures.

Then there are the Mishnah and Talmud

and Rashi's commentary on the Torah and our master,

known as Maimonides of Blessed Memory.

My heart tells me that they are responsible

for my being honored with the Nobel Prize.

- [Narrator] Since the end of the War of Independence,

a military administration had been established

over the Arab-inhabited areas of the country.

Strongly opposed by the members of the Israeli left

as being anti-democratic and oppressive,

Ben-Gurion advocated the military administration

because of the ongoing problem of Arab attacks against Jews.

When Levi Eshkol became prime minister in 1963,

its enforcement was slightly relaxed,

but the military authorities remained a daily presence

in the life of many Israeli Arabs.

- (speaking foreign language)

- I remember, if I didn't want to do my homework,

let's say I wanted to go outside and play hide-and-seek

or play some sort of game, my mom would intimidate me

by telling me to return to my homework

or to eat the entire meal,

otherwise she would bring the police.

We see these soldiers all the time in the streets

in every place, and we saw their attitude toward us.

- [Narrator] Tension between

the Israeli military authorities and Palestinian Arabs

was one of the factors that led to

an indigenous nationalism among Palestinians,

especially young people.

Another component was the sense of frustration

and abandonment by the Arab world.

The Palestinians lashed out at the Arab states,

blaming them for their losses in the 1948 war.

Few felt this defeat more than Yasser Arafat.

Born in Cairo, he spent four childhood years

with relatives in Jerusalem after the death of his mother,

returning to live in Egypt with his father at the age of 13.

He enrolled at Cairo University to study engineering

and quickly rose through the ranks

to become president of the Palestinian students union.

Arafat used this platform with great skill

to become one of the most popular

of the Palestinian leaders of the time.

After angering authorities

for becoming involved in the Muslim Brotherhood,

responsible for the assassination

of Egyptian Prime Minister Nokrashy Pasha,

Arafat promptly relocated to Kuwait.

It was there that he

and a group of disenchanted Palestinians banded together

to create Fatah, an Arabic acronym

for the Palestinian National Liberation Movement.

Frustrated with what it saw

as the Arab League's practice

of passing empty annual resolutions,

Fatah was dedicated to immediate direct military action

to regain Palestine as its homeland.

In May of 1964, a conference was held

in East Jerusalem's Palace Hall movie house.

By its end, a new entity had been created:

the Palestine Liberation Organization or PLO.

The Palestine National Council was set up

as a sort of parliament in exile,

with members of Arafat's Fatah among its founding delegates.

The council issued the Palestine National Covenant,

denying Israel's right to exist

and any Jewish claims of historic, national,

or religious ties to Palestine.

Demanding the creation of an Arab state in Israel's place,

it also proclaimed that armed struggle

is the only way to liberate Palestine.

Shortly after the PLO's creation,

Fatah carried out its first military operation

against the Jewish state.

(dramatic orchestral music)

Soon, the attacks became deadly,

when mines planted by Arafat's group

killed several Israelis.

Fatah's raids were designed as a message by Arafat

to the Arab establishment and Israel

that the Palestinians were now going to be

in control of their own destiny.

Inspired by Fatah, other Palestinian groups

would soon launch their own attacks

against Israel from Lebanon, Jordan, and Gaza.

- [Reporter] Explosive charges were set off

under an apartment building

in a residential section of Jerusalem.

- [Narrator] Quiet tension that had characterized

Israel's relations with its Arab neighbors

since the late-1950s

was now being replaced by a dangerous cycle of violence.

(explosion booming)

The situation deteriorated

when Syrian mortars on the Golan Heights

attacked Kibbutz Gadot below, firing more than 200 shells.

Israel responded by sending its jets over the Golan Heights.

Syria's Russian-made MiG-21s immediately challenged back.

The dogfight did not last very long.

Within minutes, six MiGs were shot down.

An angry Syria demanded that its Egyptian ally

come to its defense, but Cairo refused, telling Damascus,

"Unless there is an attack, we will not act."

Syria continued to escalate tensions

when it falsely reported to Cairo that 13 Israeli brigades

had been massed on the Israeli-Syrian border

for an imminent attack against Damascus.

Reacting to this information,

Egypt surprised the world by moving troops in large numbers

into the Sinai, an area that had been demilitarized

since the end of the 1956 Sinai War.

As its troops moved in, Cairo radio warned of an all-out war

that would bring about the end of Israel.

Gradually, Nasser was emerging

not only as the champion of Egypt

but of the entire Arab world.

(audience cheering)

The Eshkol government then decided

to hold Israel's annual Independence Day Parade

without the usual battalions of tanks and artillery.

Nasser immediately accused Israel

of having sent the missing tanks to the Golan Heights

in preparation of an invasion of Syria on May 17th.

Once again taking the international community by surprise,

Cairo ordered the removal of all UN forces from the Sinai.

Adding to the shock

was UN Secretary General U Thant's decision

to give in to the demand and call for the withdrawal

of the troops within a 24-hour period.

Concern over the Egyptian troop activity

left the Eshkol government with no choice

but to order up a partial mobilization

of its military reserves.

The government also decided

that if Nasser threatened Israeli shipping

by closing the Straits of Tiran,

there would be no other choice but to go to war.

The question was, would he make such a move?

The answer came the following day.

At an Egyptian air force base in the Sinai,

Nasser announced that Egypt was reimposing

its blockade of the straits.

(boots marching)

The mood was understandably tense

at an emergency cabinet meeting the next day,

but the Eshkol government decided to postpone

taking any military action

pending a trip by foreign minister Abba Eban

to consult with the leaders

of England, France, and the United States.

Chief of Staff Rabin also decided to pursue

some consultation on his own.

He was in despair over what he perceived to be

the continuing indecision of the Eshkol government.

He paid a call on former Prime Minister Ben-Gurion.

The elder statesman had become,

for all intents and purposes, a political outcast.

He had left the political party he founded

because of disputes with Prime Minister Eshkol.

Along with disciples Shimon Peres and Moshe Dayan,

he was now part of the tiny Rafi faction in the Knesset,

a small party with little if any power.

The old man, as he was known, wasted no time

in berating Rabin for Israel's present state of affairs.

- [David] You have led this state into a grave situation.

You bear the responsibility.

I doubt that Nasser wants war,

but now we are totally isolated!

- [Narrator] Minister of the Interior Moshe Shapiro

was no less blunt.

- [Moshe] In 1951, when Egypt closed the straits,

we didn't rush to war.

We waited until 1956,

when we had France and Britain by our side.

Now we have to fight on two or three fronts.

- [Narrator] The harsh criticism took its toll on Rabin.

He suffered a collapse

and disappeared from public sight for three days.

His doctors blamed it on a combination of tension,

exhaustion, and nicotine poisoning

from the enormous amounts of cigarettes he had been smoking.

Making the rounds of Western capitals,

Foreign Minister Eban found little enthusiasm

for an Israeli preemptive strike against Egypt or Syria.

- Our government's policy is firmly set out.

- [Narrator] In a meeting with US President Lyndon Johnson,

Eban was cautioned that Israel would not be alone

unless it decided to go at it alone.

Eban immediately reported to the cabinet

upon his return to Israel

the substance of his overseas meetings.

But by now, the public was becoming

increasingly anxious and frustrated.

The mood was not helped by a radio address

delivered by Prime Minister Eshkol.

Israelis gathered around their radios,

awaiting a strong message of leadership.

What they got was anything but inspiring.

Eshkol stammered through much of his speech,

giving the impression that he was not in control.

The mood became grimmer after Nasser gave a speech

to his national assembly.

- [Gamal] The issue is no longer Aqaba

or the Straits of Tiran.

The issue is the aggression against Palestine

that took place in 1948.

- [Narrator] Israel also lost any confidence

in the ability of the international community

to pressure Egypt to abide by the 1956 treaty

and reopen the straits.

Of the 80 countries approached

to become part of the multinational naval force

proposed by the US to end the Egyptian blockade,

only two volunteered to join.

Israelis were further disheartened

by the comments of US Secretary of State Dean Rusk.

- [Dean] I don't think it's our business

to restrain anybody.

- [Narrator] Sensing the anxiety of the electorate,

Prime Minister Eshkol named a new defense minister,

someone sure to generate more confidence

in the government's ability to deal with the crisis:

national hero

and former military chief of staff Moshe Dayan.

Selling the idea of Dayan as defense minister

to his political mentor, David Ben-Gurion,

a bitter rival of Eshkol, fell to Shimon Peres,

the third member of the tiny Knesset party they belonged to.

- [Shimon] We can't topple Eshkol.

But with Dayan as minister of defense, we can win the war.

- [David] I thought you were a friend!

How dare you back down on replacing Eshkol?!

- [Narrator] But the much younger Peres,

who was one of Ben-Gurion's closest aides, stood his ground.

- [Shimon] You taught us that if the needs of the movement

are in conflict with the country,

then the country comes first.

Doesn't that rule apply to Ben-Gurion?

- [Narrator] In the end, Ben-Gurion put aside

his personal feelings and gave his blessings to Dayan.

Further sensing the public mood,

Eshkol decided to broaden his cabinet,

bringing in two opposition figures,

one of them Menachem Begin, as ministers without portfolio.

On the eve of the war,

Israel had its first national unity government.

(military percussion music)

Israel's military reserves were now completely mobilized.

With war on the horizon, civilians converted basements

into makeshift air raid shelters.

Thousands of sandbags were filled.

Hotels were cleared of their guests

to become first-aid stations.

(soft piano music)

Golda Meir packed a small overnight bag

that she would need in a shelter.

She wrote in her diary--

- [Golda] We are two-and-a-half-million Jews

and every one of us feel personally responsible

for the survival of the state.

And we all know that the enemy we face

is committed to our annihilation.

- I was a student in Tel Aviv

and we were actually being told

that we will have to assist the municipality digging up,

I would imagine they were talking about

10,000 graves for the prospect

that there are going to be so many casualties

that cemeteries are not going to contain them,

so digging them up in park areas.

We were preparing a lot of sandbags

to put them behind the windows.

The general prevailing feeling

was that this war might be a new Holocaust.

- [Narrator] In an effort to steady

the nerves of the public,

General Chaim Herzog began making nightly radio broadcasts.

One night, he reassured listeners

who were fearful of an attack by Nasser.

- [Chaim] If one takes into consideration

the strength and preparedness of the Israel Defense Forces,

the Egyptian commander has his problems.

(jet engine roaring)

- [Narrator] At a meeting ending in the early hours

of the morning, Defense Minister Dayan told the cabinet

that only through a preemptive strike

could Israel stand up to the Arab armies

now massed along its borders.

That strike, he added,

must take place sooner rather than later.

He then laid out the battle plan

devised by the country's top military minds.

(sirens wailing)

The attack order was radioed

from the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.

Israeli planes took off at staggered intervals,

heading for key Egyptian bases

in the Sinai, Suez, and Nile Valley.

All were scheduled to arrive over their targets

at the identical moment, 7:45 a.m.

The attack was timed to take place

when Egyptian pilots had landed for their morning break.

In just seven minutes,

the Israeli Air Force destroyed the Egyptian planes

before moving on to rocket-bomb enemy airfields.

(explosions booming)

Less than three hours after taking off,

the Israeli fighter jets were streaking home.

300 of Nasser's 340 combat planes on the ground

had been demolished.

The Israeli Air Force shot down another 20 in the sky.

Egypt's air bases were left in ruins,

its communication installations crippled.

While the Air Force was in the process

of disabling its Egyptian counterpart,

the Israeli ground attack began in the Sinai.

(explosions booming)

Within a day after a series of ferocious battles,

El Arish, Khan Yunis, and Gaza were in Israeli hands.

But Egyptians far away from the frontline

were being told a much different story.

During the first 24 hours of the war,

Cairo radio proclaimed that Israel's army

and air force had been destroyed,

and Egyptian tanks were driving through

the streets of Tel Aviv.

Hearing the initial reports out of Cairo,

Syrian military officials

decided to change their original battle plan

of bombarding northern Israel and moving on to Haifa,

Israel's third-largest city.

(explosion booming)

Instead, they chose to shell the Galilee town of Rosh Pinna

and neighboring kibbutzim.

As kibbutzniks were forced to spend

as long as 11 hours at a time in bomb shelters,

the Israeli Air Force and Army responded.

(explosions booming)

By nightfall, Israel's Air Force

had all but destroyed Syria's air capacity,

bombing 50 MiGs, two-thirds of its combat fleet.

At his palace, King Hussein received an urgent message

from Prime Minister Eshkol:

"Stay out of the war

"and we will abide by the 1948 Armistice Agreement."

But Hussein disregarded the Israeli leader,

bolstered by a phone call he had received from Nasser.

He told the king that Israel's air force had been crushed

and that his forces were halfway across the Negev.

Nasser urged him to attack Israel from the West Bank

and join up with his army.

Persuaded by Nasser, Hussein ordered his troops

to attack across the armistice lines.

His main focus was West Jerusalem, home to 190,000 Jews.

(explosions booming)

(flames crackling)

Jordanian shells began hitting populated areas

of the Israeli capital.

One scored a direct hit on the Knesset.

That night, the cabinet began to discuss

a move of major political significance

forced by Jordan's decision to attack Israel:

the taking of the Old City and East Jerusalem.

Minister Yigal Allon and Menachem Begin

argued for an immediate attack.

The Herut party leader argued

that this was a historic moment of opportunity.

Dayan and Chief of Staff Rabin issued the attack orders

to general Uzi Narkiss.

Working with Narkiss was a paratrooper brigade

under the command of a young colonel, Mordechai "Motta" Gur.

(guns firing)

(explosions booming)

Battles were fierce, and the Jewish state

suffered some of its heaviest casualties of the war.

(explosions booming)

But in less than 24 hours,

Israel captured Ammunition Hill and Mount Scopus,

and swept all the way through to Hebron.

(explosions booming)

The Jordanian army was decimated.

All of the major cities on the West Bank

were now under Israeli command.

At this point,

only the Old City remained under Arab control.

While all eyes were on Jerusalem, Israel's armored corps

consolidated their gains in the Sinai,

pushing all the way to Sharm El Sheik.

The IDF was now on the banks of the Suez Canal,

and the Straits of Tiran opened to Israeli shipping.

The war had ended for Cairo.

(explosions booming)

The war would soon be over for Damascus as well.

Within 48 hours,

Syrian troops would be fleeing from the Golan Heights,

as Israel's Northern Command set out to put an end

to the mortar attacks on the Galilee once and for all.

Reports were starting to come in from New York

that a UN ceasefire was imminent.

If the Israeli's were going to take the Old City,

now was the time.

Dayan issued the orders to General Narkiss.

His one restriction: no artillery or air support

in order to protect the holy sites.

For Rabin and Narkiss, this was a telling moment.

19 years earlier, they had fought for the Old City

and had been defeated.

- (speaking foreign language)

- [Translator] So, I call up Motta Gur and I tell him,

"Go up to Augusta Victoria, conquer it,

"conquer the Mount of Olives.

"From there, you descend to the Old City.

"There, you see the Lion's Gate.

"Approximately at 10 o'clock,

"the paratroops arrive there, tanks at the helm,

"and the paratroops behind them, about 200 soldiers.

"They enter through the Lion's Gate."

(guns firing)

- [Narrator] From the Temple Mount,

the paratroopers sprinted to the Western Wall

to clear it of snipers.

There were serious casualties,

but in minutes the battle was over.

For the first time in 2,000 years,

the Old City of Jerusalem was in Jewish hands.

And for many,

it was a moment that was almost impossible to fathom.

- (speaking foreign language)

- [Translator] We arrived at the Kotel

and I thought to myself, "What am I doing here?

"What are we going to do now?"

Haim Bar-Lev was also there.

I said to Haim, "What do you say?

"Maybe we'll sing the Hatikvah, the anthem."

So, we sing it; but in our guts, we feel it's not enough.

So, we decide to pray.

- [Narrator] Yitzhak Rabin rushed to be with his men.

Keeping his emotions in check, he told himself,

"This is no time for weeping.

"This is a moment of redemption and hope."

It was a special moment for Motta Gur

and chief IDF chaplain Shlomo Goren.

Many years before, the paratrooper commander

disclosed to the rabbi a premonition he had

about leading the troops that would liberate the Old City.

At the time, he told Rabbi Goren

that if he wanted to be among the first at the Kotel,

he should stick close to him.

Now, as the two men embraced at the wall, Gur exclaimed,

"Rabbi, I told you I would be here, didn't I?"

(shofar honking)

Moments later, Rabbi Goren sounded the shofar.

Then he spoke his words broadcast around the world.

- [Shlomo] I am speaking to you from the Western Wall.

The dream of all the generations

has been fulfilled before our eyes.

To the nations,

we declare we shall protect the holy places of all faiths.

- [Narrator] For the first time,

Jews could return to the Old City

and pray without restrictions at Judaism's holiest site.

(shofars honking)

To the sound of the shofar,

hardened paratroopers who never prayed in their lives,

who knew little about Jewish tradition,

stood before the wall in tears.

Many prayed on behalf of family members

who could not be there to experience that moment.

Among the first to arrive

were two soldiers who prayed that their aunt Shula Cohen

would be freed from her long captivity in Lebanon.

Their prayers would soon be answered

when she walked across the border in a POW exchange.

She had missed the bar mitzvahs of two sons

and her daughter's wedding,

but now she was finally reunited with her family.

A Holocaust survivor caressed the stones

and spoke to his parents, who had perished,

telling them how sorry he was

that they could not be together for this occasion.

Moshe Dayan, in accordance with tradition,

put a little note between the cracks of the ancient stone.

It was a prayer for peace.

"We had come to this hallowed place

"never to leave it again," he said.

- I remember when we heard on the radio

these famous, eternal, unforgettable words,

"The Temple Mount is in our hands."

The feeling that I had at that moment

was that the world stood still.

- [Narrator] In the days after the war's end,

hundreds of thousands of Israelis

converged upon the Old City,

religious and secular Jews alike.

- People were really flowing.

The people wanted to see the Kotel.

We grew up with pictures of the wall,

especially I remember myself as a very young kid

in Budapest in Hungary.

But when the Kotel was actually captured,

people felt this picture on the wall becoming a reality

and people were kind of yearning to see

like you want to see a very dear long-lost relative,

that you just heard about it

and finally it's time to embrace it.

- (speaking foreign language)

- [Translator] Suddenly, we saw the Western Wall

appear before our eyes.

It took my breath away.

I could not move.

It was magnificent.

We identified with it as though we were connecting

after 3,000 years, that we were returning home.

I came home that night at 10 o'clock

and my whole family was waiting there for me.

My mom look at me and said just one thing.

"You were at the Kotel, right?"

(religious chanting)

- [Narrator] That Friday night,

the first since the liberation of Jerusalem,

there were special meanings to the Sabbath prayer.

Jerusalem, God's city below,

rise from your ruins and your despair.

Too long have you dwelled in the valley of the weeping.

God's pity shall crown your prayer.

Come, my beloved, and greet your Sabbath bride.

- (speaking foreign language)

(audience cheering)

(light orchestral music)

- [Narrator] At Mount Scopus,

a concert celebrating the reunification of Jerusalem

and the end of the war was held.

Leonard Bernstein conducted the Israeli Philharmonic.

Isaac Stern was the featured soloist.

- It was a special moment.

It was a recognition of both their accomplishments

and of our belonging with them.

(energetic orchestral music)

(audience applauding)

(soft orchestral music)

- [Narrator] But while many celebrated, others mourned.

759 Israeli soldiers had been killed, over 2,300 wounded.

On the Arab side, over 30,000 troops died in battle,

with scores more injured.

At a ceremony at Hebrew University on Mount Scopus,

Yitzhak Rabin was awarded an honorary doctorate

for his service to the country during the war.

- Dr. Yitzhak Rabin, (audience laughing)

(speaking foreign language).

(audience applauding)

- [Narrator] He reflected on

the responsibilities of the victor.

- [Yitzhak] We find more and more a strange phenomena

among our fighters.

Their joy is incomplete,

and more than a small portion of sorrow

prevails in their festivities.

The warriors on the frontlines saw with their own eyes

not only the glory of victory but also the price,

their comrades that fell beside them.

And the terrible price which our enemy paid

touched the heart of many of our men.

It may be that the Jewish people

has never learned or accustomed itself

to feel the triumph of conquest and victory,

and therefore we receive it with mixed feelings.

(soaring orchestral music)

- [Narrator] The Six-Day War made Israel three times larger.

The Jewish state's responsibilities

also become infinitely greater.

For millions of Jews,

Israel continued to be the promised land.

But for millions of Arabs, it became the occupied land.

But one fact was now indisputable.

Some 22 years after the end of World War II,

Israel's flag flew proudly alongside those of other nations.

The shackles of the Holocaust had been broken forever.

(fireworks exploding)

In his final radio address to the country at the war's end,

Chaim Herzog spoke for millions of Israelis.

- [Chaim] From my window, I look out upon the Temple Mount.

And once again, the armors of Israel guard the city wall,

adorned by the flag of Israel.

A burnt-out tank lies on its side before a gate in the wall,

silent testimony to the price which our people paid.

May we be worthy of this price.

(soaring orchestral music)

(soft Israeli music)