Prime Ministers

Sharett gives an overview of Israeli foreign policy, key issues, and relationships with UN and Arab states.

With crisp analysis, Haganah Commander Yigal Allon, later a Prime Minister of Israel attributes Israel's successes to multiple factors including the absence of a centralized Arab command, limited Arab military training, underestimating the potential fighting capabilities of local Arabs, and Israel's success in integrating its citizens into the war effort.

In an impassioned Knesset speech, Menachem Begin staunchly opposes accepting $1.5 billion in German reparations for Jewish deaths during WWII. No price, he believes, can be put on the lives lost.

Israel's first prime minister was a prolific writer. In this excerpt of a 50-page document, he notes that the Jewish nation’s DNA included relentless challenges marked by dispersal, ostracism and hatred by many people. Despite these adversities, Israel’s establishment symbolizes a remarkable victory against all odds — a culmination of the Jewish people’s tenacity and unyielding spirit. The state and Zionism were not remotely close to being finished, nor having succeeded in the quest for the Jewish people’s normalization.

In response to President Eisenhower’s demand that Israel leave Sinai, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion provides a detailed history of Israel at the UN and Egypt’s denial to Israel of use of the Suez Canal. He stresses Egyptian “injustice, discrimination, hostility, and boycott” imposed on Israel.

Ben-Gurion elegantly connects modern Israel from messianic redemption to Zionism, building the country through labor and immigration, with dual needs to remain actively linked to the Jewish diaspora and Jewish values through education.

With tensions on its borders, Eshkol tries to reassure Israeli public. Instead he gives a “painfully faltering” speech. Popular and party disgruntlement follow, opening the way for Eshkol to turn over the Defense Ministry two days later to General Moshe Dayan.

Two days after the conclusion of the June 1967 War, Eshkol, recounts the series of events that led to war, the war itself and the immediate aftermath. He reaches out to Arab states for peace seeking a path to peace with her belligerent neighbors. A week later, Israel will quietly messages Cairo and Damascus through the US, hat Israel seeks an end to the conflict. No answers are received.

July 26, 1967: The Alon Plan reflects a response to Israel’s pre-1967 war border vulnerability seeking a future west bank arrangement that is not a strategic/geographic threat to Israel and its coastal plain population centers.

Prime Minister Golda Meir in her address to the Knesset since the beginning of the October War, recounts the war’s status on the Golan Heights and in the Suez Canal area. She reveals that an Israeli task force had crossed the Suez Canal and was fighting on the west bank of that waterway.

With candor, Israeli Foreign Minister Allon tells Secretary of State Vance that the Israeli Labor government would under no circumstances negotiate with the PLO until it gave up terrorism, recognized UNSC 242, and unequivocally accepted Israel’s right to exist. Only in 1993, did the PLO accept these premises, Sixteen years had then passed while Israel built settlements virtually without restraint in the territories.

This first Carter-Rabin meeting was unpleasant at best. Rabin would not turn over Israel's negotiating prerogatives to the US; Carter publicly told Israel that it might have to return to the June 1967 borders. Carter said Rabin was like a "dead fish." and Rabin said that he felt 'cornered by Carter." His administration was interested in carving out the West Bank for Palestinian political expression even before the PLO was prepared to accept Israeli legitimacy. And Israel was not prepared to withdraw from the West Bank, a position also held by Menachem Begin.

Prime Minister-elect Begin rebukes President Carter’s assertion that Israel will need to withdraw from almost all the lands Israel secured in the June 1967 war, especially Jerusalem and the West Bank. Begin is adamant opposed to dealing with the PLO. Begin refuses to relinquish Israeli decision-making to US preferences or dictates. These fundamental policy disagreements will remain unresolved between Begin and Carter for the duration of Carter’s presidency, and years after.

Begin tells Carter that Judea, Samaria (the West Bank) and the Gaza Strip will not be placed under foreign sovereignty; likewise, these areas will not be annexed, leaving them open for possible negotiations.

Following his surprise electoral victory in May, Prime Minister Menachem Begin traveled to Washington in an effort to establish a positive rapport with President Carter. While this initial meeting was cordial, each met the others’ stubbornness, a characteristic that would keep their relationship respectful but acrid for years to come.

The Romanian president told Menachem Begin that Egyptian President Sadat was interested in negotiations with the Israelis. This secret visit took place three weeks before Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan met secretly with Egyptian Vice President Hasan Tuhami in Morocco.

Unknown to the Carter administration and one month before it issued the US-Soviet Declaration to convene an international Middle East Peace Conference, Prime Minister Begin tells the cabinet that he learned from the Rumanian president that Sadat wishes to have Israeli and Egyptian representatives meet in secret talks. That bi-lateral Dayan -Tuhami meeting takes place on September 16. Begin refers to advanced drafts of proposed treaties between Israel and each Arab state; he presents details about Rumanian Jewish immigration to Israel.

Begin welcomes Sadat’s bold initiative, seeking an end to the conflict with other Arab states through negotiated treaties. Begin invites other Arab leaders to negotiate as Sadat was doing.

Five weeks after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat flew to Jerusalem in November 1977, to accelerate Egyptian – Israeli negotiations, Begin brought to President Jimmy Carter, Israel’s response to Sadat’s peace initiative: political autonomy for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. No Palestinian state was considered.

After a year in office, the Carter administration’s initiative to achieve a comprehensive Middle East peace between Israel and her Arab neighbors had stalled. At this White House meeting, Dayan reviewed Israel’s concerns about the West Bank and Brzezinski criticized Begin’s autonomy plan for the Palestinians. Begin and Carter’s mutual dislike over policy decisions continued to rise.

September 6, 1978, 6 p.m. Source: Israel State Archives/Box/A4314/1 Notes taken by Elyakim Rubinstein in the Israeli delegation’s discussion about a meeting Prime Minister Menachem Begin had with President Jimmy Carter and President Anwar Sadat...

In this meeting, the contents of which have not been released by the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) but are available from the Israel State Archives (ISA), Begin clearly committed that “perhaps one military settlement” in the Jordan Valley would be established during the three months of the treaty negotiations. The extraordinarily contentious public dispute on the settlements would mar the diplomatic success of the Camp David Accords and add tension to the already fraught Carter-Begin relationship.

Begin agrees to halt settlements construction only for the duration of the peace treaty negotiations, not until Palestinian autonomy is applied. Carter erroneously believes that Begin made a promise to halt settlements.

This document is the only known official written transcript of the Begin-Carter discussion held at the end of the 1978 Camp David negotiations about any moratorium on Israel's future settlement building. This record shows that Begin made no mention of a moratorium on settlement building for longer than three months. However, President Carter publicly, and Secretary of State Vance, in his memoirs, Hard Choices disagreed, believing the time mentioned was five years. For the remainder of Carter's presidency, and for the rest of his post-presidency, the 'building of Israeli settlements' became a key point of contention in shaping his relationship with Israel.

Begin summarizes in great detail the contents and the political implications of the recently signed Camp David Accords. He reiterated Israel's continued presence in Jerusalem, per its June 1967 Law, and clarified the terms used in the agreements.

Embedded in the September 17, 1978 Camp David Accords were broad outlines for an Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty and a Framework for Palestinian autonomy. The details of both remained to be negotiated. Yet, obstacles to implementation of the Accords appeared almost immediately.

Prime Minister Menachem Begin argues for the return of Rafah to Egypt; the greater purpose is implementation of the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty, which also meant Israel''s withdrawal from settlements in Sinai near Rafah. Egypt in treaty negotiations with Israel, did not want to have the Gaza Strip again under their administration as they had between 1949 until after the June 1967 War

Areas of bilateral political and military cooperation are noted to fend off Soviet involvement in the the Middle East, to assist Israel in building the Lavi aircraft, to assure an independent Lebanon, and promote Arab-Israeli negotiations.

In September 2023, thirty years after the historic signing of the Oslo Accords, there is occasion to review Prime Minister Rabin’s understanding of them. I assembled this collection years ago from Daily Reports- Near East and South Asia, 1993-1995. Two short items about Rabin’s views are also found or linked here. Rabin provided a summary of his views of the Accords in a Knesset speech in October 5, 1995. Some of Rabin’s reasons for signing the Accords are also provided in Yehuda Avner’s The Prime Ministers.

November 1, 1995 Three days before he was assassinated Nov. 4, 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin told his speechwriter Yehuda Avner why he recognized the PLO and Yasser Arafat. That recognition came in the exchange...

President Clinton and Prime Minister Peres agree to deepen cooperation between their countries through regular consultation in all economic, political, military spheres.

President Bush outlines view of Palestinian-Israeli settlement with Israeli Prime Minister: two state solution, borders to take into account changes in territories since 1967 War, and refugee resettlement in a future Palestinian state.

Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and Palestinian leader Abbas meet in Washington to ‘kick start’ negotiations by implementing previous promises; the US is to judge performance to see if a treaty can result. It does not.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives five prerequisites for a peace with the Palestinians in call with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations: mutual recognition, refugee resolution outside of Israel, end of conflict commitment, demilitarized Palestinian state, and guaranteed treaty or arrangement by the international community.

Netanyahu praises the Obama administration for its support of Israel’s security, then roundly criticizes it for negotiating a deal with Iran that will not roll back its nuclear breakout time and for not demanding that before sanctions are lifted that Iran stop its support of terrorism and threats to wipe Israel off the map.

Netanyahu reproaches the international community for supporting the Iran deal, the UN for its deafening silence against threats to Israel, and, against Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for promising to cancel all agreements with Israel.

After visiting Saudi Arabia, Trump meets with Netanyahu where both assert joint views on the peace process, Iran, regional cooperation, and the long-standing relationship between Israel and the US; Trumps second meeting with Netanyahu since taking office.

Bennett makes remarks about a new self-defense system, fears about Iran, managing the pandemic, economic growth, and Israel’s growing relationship with Middle Eastern Arab countries.

The focus of Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s first speech at the UN was a political weather report of Israel’s relations with Arab neighbors. He lauded Arab states for embracing Israel, hoped that Israel could move toward a two-state solution with the Palestinians, and blistered the hate spewing from Hamas and Iran; Israel he said, would not tolerate Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Addressing Israel's fear of Iran's access to nuclear weapons, the same point made by his predecessor Yair Lapid stressed in 2022 at the UN, Netanyahu like Lapid praised the Abraham Accords, noting in a quite unrestrained fashion that Israel was on the 'cusp of a historic peace with Saudi Arabia." The Prime Minister did mention support for a two-state solution with the Palestinians as Lapid had done previously.

Israeli Prime minister provides minimal detail for the Gaza Strip's post war civilian restructuring, focusing entirely on immediate and long term Israeli security needs with no imposed Palestinian state nor international negotiating intervention acceptable.

In a 52 minute speech, Netanyahu explained Israel’s absolute need for total victory in the Gaza war because Hamas and Iran were both enemies of the United States and Israel. With bi-partisan emphasis, he thanked Presidents Biden and Trump for their unwavering current and past support. Dozens of congressional members did not attend his speech, noting disagreements with the Prime Minister's policies.

February 4, 2025 Trump Unveils Plan for U.S. Takeover of Gaza In President Donald Trump’s first meeting at the White House with a foreign leader in his second term, he welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin...

June 13, 2025 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national address in English announcing Operation Rising Lion. Compiled from multiple outlets, including Yahoo News, The Jerusalem Post and Wikipedia. https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/benjaminnetanyahuiranairstrikes.htm Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces...