 I was twenty-five when I first began to work as a member of Levi Eshkol’s inner circle. That was back in 1965 in the aftermath of the elections that had caused such a stir at the time - elections marked by the struggle against Ben-Gurion and his boys. I was one of Eshkol’s boys, and always had been, because I felt a genuine affection for him, respected him and wished to save him from Ben-Gurion, who was out to rip his successor’s premier-ship into shreds. Thus was I swept into the adviser’s court.
Seven-eight months on, I felt I could no longer hold out there and decided to tender my resignation. Though I loved my master and did not want to be set free, my feeling was one of an adviser caught in a snare from which I sought to release myself.
My soft spot for Eshkol came from his weakness, a point I held in his favor. He was lacking in charisma, for which very reason he was an enchanting man who charmed and won over many. Charisma relieves its possessor of the need to persuade and obtain the consent of others, since charisma speaks in and of itself, convincing others by its very nature, though it is not quite clear why this should be so. By contrast, personal charm such as Eshkol’s is a soft narcotic that does not drive people around the bend, still allowing them to distinguish between good and bad. Personal charm is less intoxicating, hence also less well-known.
However, Eshkol’s advisers and close associates dearly wished to see their man sell more - at least as much as Ben-Gurion had, whose charisma was capable of bringing coal to Newcastle or selling ice to the Eskimos, but when for once it encountered trouble in pitching the idea of a commission of inquiry into the Lavon Affair and into the question of "who gave the order", this was also seen as a breaking of the rules. The great wish entertained in the advisers’ circle was that Eshkol should be another Ben-Gurion, which meant a toning down of all that was good and fine in him, in favor of things that he did not have to be nor could be. When they finally decked him out in the old emperor’s clothes, I had long since been gone.
Now, as Zionism marks its centenary - a time when Arthur’s poisoned pen is poised to rewrite history - Eshkol is liable to come out as the major victim, for he was a prime mover among the Zionist leaders. Levi son of Devorah and Yosef Shkolnik was the preeminent builder of the Zionist enterprise in Israel, with only Pinhas Sapir rivaling him for the construction crown. The Eshkol years devoted to the reclamation and endowment of both land and water, will always be remembered as the vintage years of the Zionist harvest, redolent with choicest pioneering aroma.
Eshkol represented a Zionism characterized by responsibility and level-headedness, productivity and creativity, tempered by normalcy and sobriety, openness and tolerance. It was a Zionism untouched by Messianism and adventurism, neither by parasitism, prejudices and xenophobia. Thus, with the outbreak of the Six-Day War, following his ouster from the post of defense minister, marked by a great deal of ingratitude, and with the opening of a new page in the nation’s annals, he was seen as the right man in the right place at the right time. Who better than the responsible and levelheaded Eshkol would know how to preserve the good old vintage wine and keep the lid tightly sealed on the demon of chauvinistic nationalism. Alas, the demon broke loose, for Eshkol was already a tired and beaten man, unable to step into the breach. Mediocrity had overpowered high-mindedness, and the group of Golda, Galili, Dayan and Alon had triumphed over Eshkol. There he stood - the right man with the clear-seeing eyes - watching as the foursome let the door open to an evil wind, which ultimately overtook and blinded them all.
It is poignantly ironic that all this destruction began in the very period of the great builder. The man who labored tirelessly to revive and endow the land of Israel, lived to see the vacuous revelry of the trees and stones, the mindless merrymaking of the stars and zodiac signs - and his heart constricted within him.
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