THE YEARS BETWEEN JUNE AND OCTOBER

...But he did so without crossing the borders of the adjoining "baronies...

...Apart from a few names at the top of the list, the rest of the nominees — thus, also the rest of the Members of the Knesset — are an amorphous collection of people largely unknown to the general public...

...Margalit's book revealed the utter lack of preparatory staff work at Cabinet level, the lack of decision-making machinery, the haphazard manner in which decisions were rendered, the incredibly superficial nature of Cabinet discussions and the all-pervading power of the kitchen cabinet...

...But that was all long ago, before the euphoric present...

...In many ways this definition of what happened in Israel's society explains public reactions after the war...

...His instincts are frequently accurate, but unfortunately he often lacks the decisiveness to follow them through...

...The Knesset, the elected body representing the public, had but little influence in these matters...

...Golda Meir, who had held national leadership positions for many years, rising through the ranks of the labor movement...

...Arab labor helped develop Israel as tens of thousands of Arabs crossed into Israel daily to their new jobs...

...Sapir in the field of economics and Mrs...

...Thus, for example, the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Knesset has exercised little or no control over the defense establishment...

...This article is an adaptation of the chapter entitled "And Yeshurun Waxed Fat" from the Hebrew edition of Ambassador Herzog's recent book, the war of atonement october, 1973 considerable economic advantage from the Israeli administration, and this, in turn, benefited the Israeli economy...

...He was succeeded by Mrs...

...he cannot affect the nominations, nor can he select one candidate from one list, a second from another...

...Every week the Cabinet concentrated on foreign affairs and defense issues, while social, internal and economic matters were discussed much less frequently...

...The Israeli economy developed at one of the highest rates in the world (ten percent growth per annum in real terms...

...The process of reward and punishment became difficult to apply...

...The society which Israel created in which her heroes are tough and aloof requires gods...

...The income tax system, one of the most stringent in the world, coupled with numerous ingenious methods which had been devised (even by the Government) to bypass the income tax laws, played a major part in eroding the moral basis of the society...

...he had become, virtually overnight, an object of worldwide admiration and adulation...

...Mrs...

...The world had then looked on petrified, incapable of action...

...Against this background, one can understand how just three people came to control Israel in the period between the last two wars...

...The province of each "barony" was clearly delineated, the borders between them respected by the other two barons...

...Chaim Herzog is Israel's new Ambassador to the United Nations...

...income per capita reached some two thousand dollars, equivalent to many countries in Western Europe...

...A dove, politically speaking, he was in principle opposed to what he considered were the more intransigent policies of Mrs...

...Dayan has a highly original brain which is capable of analyzing situations brilliantly and producing unique ideas...

...His outward appearance and image belie his hesitant character...

...The Israeli system is unique in the world...

...Uncompromising in her manner, she divided people into black and white categories, with few gray areas...

...She was very much the overbearing mother who ruled the roost with her iron hand...

...From port worker to university professor, everybody was involved in attempting to evade government tax regulations...

...The electoral system never placed a Minister or a Member of the Knesset in a position in which he would have to defend his record before the voters...

...The voter has no influence whatsoever on the creation of the lists...

...Such a system of government was bound to create an ever-widening gap between the leadership on the one hand and the public on the other hand...

...The number of votes for the list determines the number of that party's representatives who will enter parliament...

...In any event, however, they succeeded in finding a modus vivendi...

...He has excelled as a leader in the political-military arena...

...yet he was in many ways the final arbiter on defense matters...

...In order fully to understand just how the personal style of the Meir Government was established, and how, in 1973, an unprecedented build-up of Arab forces along Israeli borders could take place without even a cursory discussion of the threat in Parliament or even in the full Cabinet, it is necessary to understand Israel's electoral system...

...he has no direct relationship with the electorate...

...she had an overpowering effect on those around her...

...Her stubborn decisiveness and her incomparable ability to weather adversity, her inflexible unwillingness to accept alternative solutions once she had made up her mind, were to prove a national asset during war...

...Furthermore, Parliament itself tended to ignore the fact that many of its laws were not being applied to protect the private citizen...

...It inevitably gave the leadership a sense of power without sanction, leading to decisions not subjected to prior criticism and examination, bound to encourage an approach of negligence and carelessness in the conduct of public affairs...

...But in the same way that few, if any, ministers ever dared to contest Mr...

...had been the preeminent hero of the 1967 War...

...Ministers have served — in some cases — for almost twenty-five years...

...The memory of the traumatic weeks before the Six Day War faded...

...In his open bridges policy with Jordan, in his relationship with the Arab population in the West Bank, in the Kissinger negotiations on the disengagement with Egypt and Syria, he revealed the earthy common sense which characterizes much of his approach...

...T Mhe country prospered economically, but a weakness arising out of a lack of contact between the leadership and the people became apparent...

...Dayan was always very careful to coordinate every move with Mrs...

...The leader of the major opposition party has led the opposition for twenty-six years, through eight successive electoral defeats...

...True, much had to be brought to the Cabinet table for decisions...

...The lists themselves are prepared by a nominating committee of each party, chosen by that party's leadership group...

...True, there were problems, but by and large one could view the problem areas with optimism: the liberal administration of the occupied Arab territories was creating a bridge to the Arab world...

...Meir...

...Ben Gurion tried in vain to change it, believing that it would bring catastrophe to the nation...

...Arab tourists poured into Israel and the occupied territories in the hundreds of thousands...

...trade flowed both ways across the Jordan River bridges...

...Criticism destroys gods before they are created...

...Many Israelis imagined that the two would never manage to work side-by-side, that the inevitable conflict between them would lead to a general instability in government...

...a free Arab press began to flourish...

...She had a strong personality which was soon asserted in the Israeli cabinet and which led to a very personal style of government...

...Thus, the representative depends for his political future on the leaders of the party, who decide whether he will be nominated at all, and decide as well where his name will be placed on the list...

...Public morality was affected not only in regard to payment of taxes...

...Privately, Dayan frequently expressed grave reservations regarding internal social developments in the country and its economic system, but only up to a point...

...Instead, once in four years his party leaders go to the public and ask for their votes...

...She had been the first Israeli Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Minister of Labor, Minister of Foreign Affairs and finally, Secretary General of the Labor Party...

...He had been a wise and sensible person who was greatly misunderstood during his premiership...

...So impervious was the leadership to public criticism that a book...

...Meir continued to manage the government in her peculiarly personal manner...

...Message from the White House, published in 1971, by Dan Margalit, a newspaper man on the staff of Haaretz, made no impression whatsoever in Israel...

...Meir's outstanding characteristics proved to be both her greatest assets and her major liabilities...

...She developed her own style of government, in which her personality was the decisive factor...

...Pinhas Sapir, a driving force who, as Minister of Finance, was probably the most powerful single minister in any Western democratic government...

...just weeks before the war, Israel's political and military leaders had spoken of the relatively long period of quiet along the borders to which they looked forward...

...She established a personal accord with President Nixon which proved to be one of Israel's great political assets in times of need...

...Each of the three personalities continued to control his "barony" with little interference from outside...

...Meir had vehemently opposed his appointment as Minister of Defense in the period just before the Six Day War...

...He has held a variety of staff and command posts in the Israeli Army and has been active as a journalist and broadcaster...

...In 1967 he was reluctant to allow Israeli forces to reach the Suez Canal because he appreciated that Egypt could never come to an agreement with Israel as long as Israeli troops were on the banks of the Suez...

...As we saw in the war, by acquiring a monopoly on the knowledge of good and bad, the leadership removed from the public its responsibility for its fate...

...He is a born leader but a very poor politician...

...And it has frozen the political parties...

...he has no time for party hacks, and is very rapidly bored by people...

...Mrs...

...He summed up the situation succinctly: "Free thinking is by its very nature critical...

...The economic field, including all aspects of government relating thereto, as well as world Jewish support, were controlled by Mr...

...When there are gods the responsibility for the society and its fate moves over from the public in general and every individual to these gods...

...But stagnation set in at the top...

...Israel exported knowhow, helping other countries...

...Indeed, the first intimation which this Committee received about Arab preparations for war in October 1973 was six hours after the war had begun...

...Meir and General Dayan, and he expressed himself openly in this respect...

...To do so, even though Knesset committees are formally charged with the supervision of administrative behavior, would be to place their political futures on the line...

...There was much to be proud of in this society which absorbed its less fortunate brethren from all over the world and achieved so much success in the creation of a nation based on egalitarian and socially advanced concepts...

...When these gods disappoint, the basis of that society is swept from under its feet...

...Israel benefited from the oil wells in Sinai...

...Jewish immigration rose...

...He was worshipped by the nation...

...While a prolonged doctors' strike was under way, one professor of psychiatry publicly expressed his grave doubts as to the country's ability to withstand a major onslaught...

...A superior defense force was created...

...There was little staff work...

...Israel in 1967 was in fact surprised by developments on the Arab side...

...Party officials who reach elected office tend to hold on to it...

...The result of this system is a heavy emphasis on seniority in party councils...

...Meir in foreign affairs, so few ministers hazarded Dayan's ill-concealed irritability by crossing swords with him on matters of defense...

...eloquent eulogies about an Israel on the verge of being overrun by Arab hordes had been written...

...It is against the background of a dedicated, hard-working and powerful Prime Minister, imbued with great feeling and faith — but self-satisfied, complacent and convinced that leaders know better — that one must see the developments at the decision-making level in Israel prior to the war...

...She was intolerant of criticism and highly effective in debate...

...their political differences were glossed over quite early on, as they developed a relationship of mutual respect...

...Every leader continued to function, conscious of the fact that despite all the mistakes he might make his position on the list in the next elections would not be affected...

...Strikes broke out for legitimate reasons and also for matters of prestige and power politics, in many cases directly affecting the security of a country faced by mobilized armies along its borders...

...Then, early in 1969, Prime Minister Eshkol died...

...But her doctrinaire approach to problems and to the operation of government were to contribute to the failings of the government before the war...

...Meir was in absolute control of foreign policy, and above all of relations with the United States...

...Thus, partly because of the cen-trality of the powerful figures involved and partly because of the electoral and party system, the representatives of the people abdicated to a great degree their function as the watchdogs of the public, and a small select group made all major decisions without the benefit of adequate parliamentary supervision...

...large sections of the population with experience in public endeavor are thereby virtually excluded from the Knesset...

...And, because the ministers are party leaders, few Members of the Knesset will take the political risk of attacking their actions...

...He alleged that he himself had opposed the attack on the Golan Heights in Syria, but that he was overruled by the Cabinet...

...His apparent lack of decisiveness, his hesitant manner (caused chiefly by a lack of dogmatism), his ability to see-both sides of any problem, had created a peculiarly open style of government...

...Dayan had been a leader in a breakaway faction of the Labor Party (Rafi), and Mrs...

...These representatives are elected under a system of national proportional representation: each party presents to the voters a list of its nominees, and the voter chooses one such list...

...In many of its aspects, Israel's society was sound and strong...

...Arabs in the territories were reaping Major General (Ret...

...She had little idea of orderly administration, preferring to work closely with her cronies in an ad hoc framework that soon came to be known as her "kitchen...

...Each of these three operated with virtual autonomy, in a manner reminiscent of medieval baronies...

...He does not depend on the voter...

...However, the air of superiority which he adopts towards others, his obsession with himself, his laconic manner of talking, and his reputed inability to back even his closest friends, all have created a number of question marks around his personality...

...General Dayan, the charismatic Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces in the 1956 Campaign and Minister of Defense during the 1967 War...

...it has acted as a forum for the receipt of reports, but little more...

...In general the decision would go as he wished...

...in a system of such burdensome bureaucracy, the private citizen is invariably less important than pressure groups...

...The famous Israeli cartoonist Ze,ev perhaps summed him up best by portraying him as Hamlet, a "to be or not to be" figure torn by doubts...

...In the meantime, it has rendered the Knesset ineffective in many important areas of national life...

...MOMENT OCTOBER 1975 THE YEARS BETWEEN JUNE AND OCTOBER Chaim Herzog In June of 1967, Israel was transformed from potential victim to brilliant victor, and that transformation created first euphoria, then a revolution in Israel...

...B^very four years the Israeli electorate chooses 120 representatives to the Knesset (Israel's parliament...

...The new euphoria caused the Israeli public to overlook many of ihe weaknesses in the Israel Defense Forces which had been revealed during the war, most particularly the fact that intelligence estimates regarding Arab intentions before the war had been wrong...

...Dayan's successful period as Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, coupled with the incomparable prestige which he had acquired as a result of the Six Day War and his position as a world figure, gave him unquestioned authority on defense matters, an authority which few ministers of defense in the democratic world enjoyed...

...Economic and settlement achievements were unparalleled...

...Why call up such memories now...

...For the first time, Israelis felt they were living behind secure borders with strategic depth: surely no Arab leaders would launch a war against Israeli forces manning these new front lines...

...It was almost impossible to dismiss an individual for slovenliness, negligence or incompetence...

...Yet, he lacks formal military education...

...Yet it aroused no public interest, no reaction on the part of the Parliamentary opposition, little comment in the press, and it certainly did not lead to any change in the system of Government...