The book by the retired ambassador, Dr. Moshe Yegar, about the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the first decade of the State of Israel, is a one-of-a-kind book. It has a very detailed, and sometimes tedious, description of the ministry's activities in cooperation with the national and international arenas, which includes an assessment of its effectiveness of these activities.
In this aspect, this is a textbook for every cadet in the force, for researchers of Israeli foreign policy, and for statesmen who wish to head the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The book also describes the interpersonal and inter-organizational struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, which may also be of interest to those interested in the history of politics the Israeli one, and in the stories of the personalities who ran it over a generation ago, and who left a deep mark on our lives to this day.
The "Genesis" stories have a particularly warm place among readers, and they will find quite a few of them in Yeger's book.
For example, after the declaration of the state, the foreign minister in the interim government, Moshe Sharett, began to write telegrams to world leaders, asking them to recognize Israel.
His assistant prepared the inscriptions, and he himself printed a special version for each one.
At two in the morning the work was finished, and the driver (who was one of the first four employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), took them to the post office, but at the post office it was necessary to pay in cash, and no check could help.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not have cash, and the telegrams were delayed...
the ministry did not yet know how to prepare the charters, and in order to prepare the charter of Eliyahu Eilat, the first Israeli envoy in Washington, a servant translated from Russian into English the charter of the Soviet envoy to Israel, who was the first diplomat to honor us with his presence, and equipped the Israeli diplomat with it...
But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, like most governmental systems, did not start from scratch.
During the mandate period, the settlement's leadership prepared itself for the moment of independence, and systems such as the Jewish Agency, the National Committee, the General Histadrut and the Defense Organization underwent a rapid transformation (at least partially) from voluntary institutions to governing institutions.
Moshe Sharet headed the political department of the Jewish Agency, and he became foreign minister who had already managed to establish the skeleton of the diplomatic system.
The agency had representatives in important countries in the world, and they became, overnight, ambassadors in those places (Sharet preferred not to call them ambassadors, and to be content with the title "envoy", until he realized that there was no point in doing so).
The Agency's "Training Institute" produced graduates who became the staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in various places local Jews were appointed as ambassadors, who knew the local language very well, but hardly knew Israel and whose Hebrew they spoke was very basic.
Presents his remarkable achievements, which were admired in the world, but not in Israel.
Chaim Weizman during a visit to Tel Aviv // Photo: Zoltan Kluger
Yager leads his readers to the great efforts of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to legitimize Israel's existence and its recognition, and to the attempts to create political alliances, which, even if they succeeded, were, for the most part, short-lived.
Such were the relations with the Soviet Union (until the famous visit of the representative Golda Meir to the synagogue in Moscow in the terrible days of 1948, which exposed the Jews as having double loyalty, and greatly limited the embassy's ability to act with Jews), and with the countries of Eastern Europe.
So with France, with the countries of the Middle East that are not Arab (Iran, Turkey) and with Ethiopia, and so with African countries.
From its inception, it was a very special foreign ministry, which focused on rescuing Jews in distress, obtaining weapons, and supervising the reparations agreement with West Germany.
The Israeli delegation to Cologne was, in fact, the embassy that was not established in Germany.
The UN played a central role in Israeli diplomacy, because it often dealt with the issues of Palestinian refugees and other aspects of the conflict, and because it was a meeting point for Israeli diplomats with diplomats from countries with which we did not have diplomatic relations.
In the "World War" between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense, the diplomats were defeated.
This is the case with the question of leading committees for a truce between Israel and its neighbors, and so with the question of relations with France in the run-up to the Sinai operation and after it, and with issues involving relations with the USA. According to the author's testimony, Sharett fought against Ben-Gurion and failed, while Golda completely identified with Ben-Gurion, and accepted With her relegation to activity in Africa, both of them did not like, to put it mildly, the energetic involvement of Shimon Peres, Ben Gurion's confidant, in matters that seemed to them to be political, and to him - security.
Jager does justice to the forefathers of Israeli diplomacy.
It presents the remarkable achievements of Chaim Weizmann, who were admired in the world, but not in Israel.
Two of them - obtaining the support of the American President, Harry Truman, in the establishment of Israel, and the other - obtaining an American loan in the amount of 100 million dollars, which Sam Haim gave to Israel.
Yaakov Tzur, who held various diplomatic positions in the early years of Israel, is also highly regarded, along with David HaCohen, a politician who served as a diplomat in Burma (Myanmar) for only a year and a half, but managed to make a mark on the character of Israeli embassies in the world, in terms of aid to the Third World, and not only at him.
But there is no doubt that in the eyes of the author, Moshe Sharet, the knight with a figure of grief in our history, was the greatest of all, the wisest of all and the most professional of all.
Jager, who served as a diplomat for decades, does not spare his tribe from others...it is recommended to spend time, and read.
Moshe Yagar/ The Beginning of the Foreign Service, Carmel Publishing, 468 p.
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