The reestablishment of a sovereign Jewish state in the same decade as the Shoah is a miracle.

And it's also the achievement of some remarkable women and men, leaders who, if we study the history of their decisions, can teach us how to sustain

what they founded.

Welcome to the Tikva podcast.

I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.

This week we look at two of Israel's founders, David Ben-Gurion and Manacham Began, and

we try to think about their careers and the lessons of political courage we can learn from

them.

My guest, the Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and former editor of the

Jerusalem Post, David Mnikovsky is the co-author of a new book, Be Strong and of Good Courage,

which offers short biographies of Israeli leaders as a way to think about the purposes of Zionism

and the qualities of judgment and character needed to act for the sake of Israel's long-term strategic interests,

in the largest sense, even while incurring short-term political costs.

As you'll see in our conversation, David and his co-author Ambassador Dennis Ross

have a particular political purpose in mind. They argue in the book that Israel is at a political

inflection point right now. The strategic decision Israel faces is not about Iran or Hezbollah.

The authors, of course, recognize these immediate threats,

and they believe that Israel must be strong enough to protect itself from them.

But the big strategic problem that Israel right now must confront

is the shifting demography of Jews and Arabs

and the need to preserve the possibility for a two-state solution,

which, in their view, is giving way to a one-state consensus by virtue of Israel's inaction.

...