The Israel Institute Newsletter Volume 2: Issue 2

Educating about Israel’s history, geography, culture and people Moments in History

45 Years Ago on December 1, 1973...

David

Ben-Gurion,

(born David Gruen) Israel’s first Prime Minister, passes away at the Tel HashomerSheba Medical Center in Tel-Aviv at the age of 87. Ben-Gurion had been hospitalized since suffering a stroke.

After immigrating to the Land of Israel in 1906 from Poland, he worked as a laborer in Rishon LeZion and Petah Tikvah. He became general secretary of the Histadrut Labor Federation in 1921; in 1930 he formed Mapai, the Zionist Labor Party. In 1935 he became chairman of the Executive Committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. Ben Gurion declared the State of Israel on May 14, 1948.

In the thirteen years before statehood, he oversaw the development of organizations and key institutions that formed the skeleton and muscle for the state. Ben-Gurion also pushed to make Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

In addition to vision and toughness, Ben-Gurion left an enormous written record of his years struggling for the Jewish state. His diaries, speeches, memoranda, and books give Israelis and historians extraordinary first-hand accounts of the ups and downs, frustrations and hopes involved in building the state.

In paying respects to Ben-Gurion, an estimated 100,000 mourners passed through the Knesset to honor him as his coffin laid in state. President Richard Nixon remarked, “With courage, love, and determination, David Ben-Gurion worked to establish the modern State of Israel. The people of America join with the people of Israel in mourning the passing of a gallant man. As we shared his ideals and hopes, not only for Israel but for all mankind, so we share in their loss.”

On December 3, 1973, after a short ceremony during which no eulogies were given at his request, his pine coffin was flown to Sde Boker, his kibbutz in the Negev. He was buried next to his wife, Paula.

Vol.2 | Issue 2

Recommended Reading

Rise and Kill First:

The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations

by Ronen Bergman The first definitive history of the Mossad, Shin Bet, and the IDF’s targeted killing programs, hailed by The New York Times as “an exceptional work, a humane book about an incendiary subject.”

The Talmud says: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” This instinct to take every measure, even the most aggressive, to defend the Jewish people is hardwired into Israel’s DNA. SInce 1948, protecting the nation from harm has been the responsibility of its intelligence community and armed services.

One weapon thwarts the most serious threats: targeted assassinations on enemies large and small, sometimes in response to attacks against the Israeli people and sometimes preemptively.

A remarkable In this page-turning, eye-opeing book, feat of fearless journalist and military analyst Ronen Bergman, and responsible offers a riveting inside account of the reporting . . . targeted killing programs: their successes, their important, timely, failures, and the moral and political price and informative.

John le Carré exacted on the men and women who approved and carried out the missions.

Bergman has gained the exceedingly rare cooperation of many current and former members of the Israeli government, as well as high-level figures in the country’s military and intelligence services: the IDF, the Mossad, Caesarea (carries out attacks on the highest-value targets), and the Shin Bet (implemented the largest targeted assassination campaign to stop suicide terrorism).

Including never-before-reported, behind-the-curtain accounts of key operations, and based on hundreds of on-the-record interviews and thousands of files, Rise and Kill First brings us deep into the heart of Israel’s most secret activities.

Bergman traces, from statehood to the present, the gripping events and thorny ethical questions underlying Israel’s targeted killing campaign, which has shaped the Israeli nation, the Middle East, and the entire world.

‫בית הספר התיכון של הישיבה דפלטבוש על שם מר יואל ברברמן‬ Yeshivah of Flatbush Joel Braverman High School Al and Sonny Gindi Campus 1609 Avenue J Brooklyn, NY 11230

What is the main idea of the cartoonist? What role do you think technology plays in the current political climate?

Rabbi Dr. Raymond Harari Head of School

Rabbi Joseph Beyda Principal

Rabbi Dr. David Eliach Principal Emeritus

Ms. Sari Bacon Associate Principal

Ms. Esther Hidary Assistant Principal

Mr. Howard Rothbort Director, The Israel Institute

Happy Hanukkah

Israel at a Glance...

TEL AVIV

Alibaba founder says in Israel, innovation is as natural as water E-commerce giant leader Jack Ma praised Israel at a Tel Aviv conference, “Small is beautiful, and small is powerful.” Ma, the founder of China’s Alibaba Group, said that he has learned two things about Israel during his two trips to the country: it has innovation, and it has chutzpah, “the courage to change.”

“In Israel, innovation is everywhere, like water and food, it’s so natural,” the business magnate and philanthropist told an audience of local and foreign tech entrepreneurs, investors and government officials who gathered for the Prime Minister’s Innovation Summit.

Even if you don’t have anything, he added, “if you have brain and a heart, you can make everything possible. When knowledge — IQ — meets emotional intelligence, or EQ, “that is called innovation.” “Israel has all of these things. Israel knows that the most precious resource in the world is not oil, gas — it is the human brain.” And Israel innovates not only for itself, but for the world.

“Most people innovate for success, but I find Israel innovates for survival,” he continued. “You don’t have diamonds, but you have the biggest diamond exchange in the world. You don’t make cars, but you have the best car technology in the world. You don’t have water, but I heard that you are one of the biggest exporters of vegetables and fruits to Europe. That is amazing.”

RABIN SQUARE, TEL AVIV

Thousands of people marked the 23rd anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin at the annual memorial rally for the slain prime minister. The memorial included speakers from the left and the right, as well as several political and social activists, and artists’ performances.

For the second year in a row the rally was organized by the Darkenu movement, whose mission is to “empower the moderate majority of Israelis to exert influence on government policy and on the public discourse.” The organization chose to “focus this year on warning against an atmosphere of divisiveness, incitement and inflamed spirits ahead of the upcoming general elections.” Noting the “violent and incendiary public discourse” prevalent at the time of Rabin’s killing 23 years ago, the group said elected officials from across the political spectrum would be called upon to “maintain a civilized rhetoric.”

Events to commemorate Rabin’s assassination already have proven divisive. At a national memorial ceremony, Rabin’s granddaughter Noa Rothman said that Israel’s leadership was setting the country’s political camps against each other and inciting against the left. She also erroneously claimed that an official in the current Prime Minister’s Office had branded her grandfather a “traitor.” Her speech was lambasted by various right-wing politicians as “political”, leading to scathing retorts from left-wing leaders. President Reuven Rivlin also expressed concerns during a ceremony that the memory of Rabin’s murder is fading in Israeli society, and warned of the dangers of incitement to violence.

Rabin served as Israel’s Chief of Staff during the Six Day War in 1967, Ambassador to the US, Defense Minister and Prime Minister.

In 1994, Rabin was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with then Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat for the Oslo Peace accords.

JERUSALEM

Brazil’s president-elect confirms embassy move to Jerusalem.

“As previously stated during our campaign, we intend to transfer the Brazilian Embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem. Israel is a sovereign state and we shall duly respect that,” Brazil’s president elect Jair Bolsonaro tweeted.

If Bolsonaro goes through with the move, Brazil will become the third country to move its embassy to Jerusalem, following the United States and Guatemala. Paraguay moved its embassy to Jerusalem in May, but less than four months later, the country’s new government reversed the decision. In response, Israel recalled its ambassador to Asunción and closed its embassy.

Bolsonaro’s statement are a marked change in policy from those of previous Brazilian governments which have taken a strong proPalestinian stance. In 2016, the Palestinian Authority opened an embassy in Brasilia, amid a diplomatic spat between Israel and Brazil over the appointment of Dani Dayan, who once chaired the movement to establish Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, as Israel’s next ambassador.

Netanyahu called Bolsonaro to congratulate him.

“I am certain that your election will lead to a great friendship between our peoples and the tightening of links between Brazil and Israel. We await your visit to Israel,” Netanyahu said.

ASHDOD

Military sees surge in AI use, but not yet for critical missions Military and defense systems expect to see a huge surge in the use of artificial intelligence tools to make sense of the massive amounts of data available and to make better informed decisions. But experts also warn that the technology is still in its infancy, and it will be years before it will be able to be completely safely deployed for critical missions. That was one of the key messages at a conference in Ashdod on “Creating Insights into the Flood of Data,” held by Elta Systems Ltd., a unit of Israel Aerospace Industry Ltd. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are used today for a wide range of applications, from facial recognition to detection of diseases in medical images to global competitions in games such as chess and Go. VP and general manager of Land and Naval Radars Systems Division at IAI, Israel Lupa, said AI will play a role in the military and defense industries, but noted that it is not good for life and death decisions until the machine will be able to explain how it got to that decision.

In addition, machines still need enormous quantities of data to be able to learn to identify objects or do other tasks. Also, machines are not yet able to learn from experiences once they are deployed out in the field. “For this to happen, machines need to be able to think much more like humans,” he said.

Design: Carolina Cohen