Menachem Begin's Earpiece

The Washington Post, in it obituary for a television host, recounts the tale of Menacherm Begin's lost earpiece:

Bill Monroe, TV journalist and 'Meet the Press' host, dies at 90

Bill Monroe, a journalist best known for his nine-year tenure as moderator of the public-affairs talk show "Meet the Press" during the 1970s and '80s, died Feb. 17 at the ManorCare nursing home in Potomac. He was 90 and had complications from hypertension.

Starting on NBC-TV in 1947, "Meet the Press" is one of the longest-running programs in American broadcast history and a staple for many Sunday-morning viewers. Mr. Monroe had long worked for NBC News in Washington and had appeared as a panelist on "Meet the Press" before being tapped in 1975 as its moderator.

...One of the more memorable moments of Mr. Monroe's "Meet the Press" tenure had less to do with policy discussions than with the impromptu comedy of live television.

He was interviewing then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on a satellite broadcast when Begin's earpiece malfunctioned. The prime minister was given a replacement that allowed him to hear producers' behind-the-scenes chatter.

As the interview drew to a close, Begin heard a voice bark a command meant for Mr. Monroe: "Say goodbye." Begin, confused, repeated the statement as if asking a question: "Say goodbye?"

Begin "was a bit annoyed," said Betty Dukert, the program's former executive producer. "Bill laughed about it forever."

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Sarah Palin and Menachem Begin Compared

In The Forward, Benyamin Korn compares the media assaults on Menachem Begin and Sarah Palin:

They Broke Begin, but Won’t Break Palin

Menachem Begin is today widely regarded as one of the most effective and far-sighted statesmen in Israeli history. At one end of the political spectrum, he is fondly remembered for surrendering the entire Sinai peninsula to Egypt and uprooting Israeli communities there. At the other end of the spectrum, he is hailed for taking strong action against PLO terrorists and Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor.

But when he was first elected prime minister in 1977, Begin was the object of an unprecedented frenzy of hatred from the international news media. He was called a terrorist, a fascist, a lunatic. To explain how to pronounce the name of the new Israeli leader, Time magazine notoriously found just the right Dickens character: “Begin (rhymes with Fagin).”

Journalists hated him because he represented traditional, old-world values. They hated him because he revered the Bible. They hated him because he could connect to the common man — to the silent majority of Jews from Arab countries who had been scorned by Israel’s political and intellectual elites.

Does this remind you of anyone in American politics today? Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is not only mocked and pilloried by a shameless and unscrupulous horde of media predators, but also sidesteps them, as did Begin, to connect with the common citizen.

As is the case with Palin today, the news media waited hungrily for any opportunity to pounce on Begin. Any minor misstep was reported as if it were a major scandal. Those were the days of “gotcha” journalism at its most reprehensible.

When the Lebanon War erupted in the summer of 1982, the media sharks smelled blood. (Not, mind you, the blood of the innocent Israeli civilians who were periodically murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists based in southern Lebanon — which was, of course, the cause of the war.)

At one point during the war, Lebanese Christian forces (who were allies of Israel) entered the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla and killed hundreds of Palestinians. A maelstrom of media accusations battered the Jewish state. The most notorious was the allegation that Israeli leaders gave the Christian forces a green light to do what they wanted in Sabra and Shatilla.

Begin characterized the media attacks as a “blood libel.” Of course he was right. Blaming Israel for a massacre it did not commit was a blood libel. Indeed, an American jury eventually found that Time magazine had printed a false and defamatory report that then-defense minister Ariel Sharon was complicit in the killings.

But Sharon’s vindication came only years later. In the meantime, Begin was forced to suffer wave after wave of slander. It was too much for him. The ceaseless abuse, combined with his grief over his wife’s passing, drove him to resign from office less than a year later. Unlike other Israeli ex-prime ministers, who often return in future cabinets and sometimes even become prime minister again, Begin never returned to public life. He spent his final years as a virtual recluse.

They broke Begin. But they won’t break Sarah Palin.

Menachem Begin was the product of a bygone era. His gentlemanly manner, thoughtfulness and civility were no match for the new era of international electronic media assaults and technologically savvy propaganda.

Sarah Palin, by contrast, is a consummate 21st-century political leader...

...Hypocritical blame-meisters will call Palin every name in the book. They hope to demoralize her and her supporters. It won’t work. After more than two years of enduring every attack imaginable, she knows their tricks. She won’t let them do to her what they did to Begin.

Benyamin Korn, a former executive editor of Philadelphia’s Jewish Exponent, is director of Jewish Americans for Sarah Palin.

Article by Anshel Pfeffer

Anshel Pfeffer published in The Jerusalem Post this analysis article entitled: Suddenly Begin is beloved by all on Feb. 22, 2007

As anniversaries go, 15 isn't usually an especially significant number. But for some reason, this year's commemoration of prime minister Menahem Begin's death has generated a lot more interest than in past years. This is, of course, no coincidence.

Everyone is talking about "the loss of leadership" so often that it has become a clich . But when the prime minister and the Defense Ministry are receiving single-digit approval ratings and the only serious candidates to replace them are both failed prime ministers who were resoundingly kicked out of office by the electorate, it's hard to find another name for it.

Naturally, at time like these, the public and media begin to feel nostalgic and begin casting back to a time when we seem to remember real leaders.

Ariel Sharon, though wildly popular only 14 months ago, is not a good candidate for these memories. With the engulfing charges of corruption, Sharon is suddenly being seen in a different light, as the source of much of this sleaze. Besides, his coma - not dead but not really alive either - makes us uncertain about how exactly to commemorate him. Yitzhak Shamir has also retreated from the public view and, anyway, was a colorless figure and too partisan to become widely beloved. Yitzhak Rabin, an icon to some, is too controversial to serve as a figure of consensus. Golda Meir is tainted with the trauma of the Yom Kippur War. Sharett and Eshkol are too far in the past to resonate with most of the public, and Ben-Gurion is already a demigod and therefore hard to identify with.

Menachem Begin, though vilified for almost all his political career by the establishment, is suddenly the prime minister whose reputation is most widely agreed upon. He has something for everyone. For the right-wing, he will always remain the ultimate father figure, leading the Irgun in days of revolt and danger, and afterwards, leading Herut, the party of outsiders, for three decades in the political wilderness until the unbelievable victory in the 1977 elections. The left-wing will always be grateful to Begin for setting the historical precedent of trading territories for peace in the Camp David Accords. The religious camp will remember him as a leader with the deepest Jewish historical feelings, and the haredim for being the prime minister who brought them in from the cold, making them equal coalition partners with spending budgets.

How easy it is for the leftists to forget, now, the first Lebanon War and for rightists to overlook the destruction of Yamit and other Sinai settlements, the chronically unstable coalition, the crumbling of the Israeli economy and hyperinflation, the lack of control Begin exercised over his ministers - especially Sharon - and how ultimately he disappointed all his allies. Above all, how he clung on to the office for long months of deep depression and disconnection from events, shielded by a few aides who lied about his real condition, until he finally admitted he could no longer go on.

But all of this has now been put aside because Begin still had two qualities so lacking today. He wasn't the kind of leader whose followers lose confidence after one failure. They followed Begin through thick and thin, from the years of the underground and in eight electoral defeats. They were prepared to die for him, and in the days of the Irgun, some did. He inspired the members of Herut to sacrifice and persevere, infusing them - through the power of his rhetoric - with the enduring ideal of Jabotinskean greatness. Even for ideological opponents, it is a bracing memory, with no parallel since.

But above all, it was Begin's personal humility and simplicity. In an age in which the last four prime ministers are all wealthy men of property, the subject of corruption investigations, Begin seems almost an extra-terrestrial. It's no coincidence that the IDF Radio's special feature on Begin this week was titled The Man from 1 Rosenbaum Street. Ever since he emerged from the underground and until his elevation to the premiership, Begin lived and raised his family of five in the same one-room apartment in Tel-Aviv.

Despite winning two election campaigns, Begin was rarely popular during his lifetime, and even in power he was under constant pressure from friends and foes. Fifteen years after his death and almost a quarter of a century after leaving power, Begin suddenly has a new legacy which, more than reflecting the man that was, highlights what we feel we so sorely lack today.