The rivalry between Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, and the Irgun leader Menachem Begin culminated in 1948, when Ben-Gurion ordered the Haganah to open fire on an Irgun ship. Thereafter, the animosity between the two men was limited to fiery speeches and tense exchanges on the floor of the Knesset. The tension finally cooled only in 1967, on the eve of the Six-Day War. Shlomo Nakdimon tells the story:

Begin, who was then the opposition leader, came to then-Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and suggested that he invite Begin’s bitter rival, Ben-Gurion, to join his government to serve as his deputy or defense minister. That’s when their relationship took a turn for the better. I witnessed how Ben-Gurion came to the Knesset, entered the buffet, and started looking for Begin. How the Knesset ushers tracked down Begin to tell him Ben-Gurion invited him for a conversation, of which they had many but which unfortunately were never recorded and got lost in history.

One day, in February 1969, at the Knesset buffet, I saw Begin alongside his chief of staff Yeḥiel Kadishai holding a brown envelope with the words “state of Israel” inscribed on it. My curiosity led me to find out the letter’s contents a few days later. It was a copy of a letter addressed to Begin, in which Ben-Gurion slammed Eshkol.

“I opposed your way before the establishment of the country and sometime after that, the same way I opposed Ze’ev Jabotinsky [who was a Russian Jewish Revisionist Zionist leader and Begin’s mentor],” Ben-Gurion wrote to Begin. “But I’ve never had a personal grudge against you and as I got to know you more over the last few years—I’ve learned to cherish you.”

Begin’s reply to Ben-Gurion was quite similar [in tone].

Ben-Gurion, who was undoubtedly always destined for great things, made two mistakes in his life: distancing himself from Jabotinsky and distancing himself from Begin before Israel’s establishment and in its early years. They could have been, perhaps were even meant to be, the best of partners, and it goes without saying who lost out the most.

With the IDF engaged in ground maneuvers in both northern and southern Gaza, and a plan about to go into effect next week that would separate more than 100,000 civilians from Hamas’s control, an end to the war may at last be in sight. Yet there seems to be no agreement within Israel, or without, about what should become of the territory. Efraim Inbar assesses the various proposals, from Donald Trump’s plan to remove the population entirely, to the Israeli far-right’s desire to settle the Strip with Jews, to the internationally supported proposal to place Gaza under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA)—and exposes the fatal flaws of each. He therefore tries to reframe the problem:

[M]any Arab states have failed to establish a monopoly on the use of force within their borders. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Sudan all suffer from civil wars or armed militias that do not obey the central government.

Perhaps Israel needs to get used to the idea that in the absence of an entity willing to take Gaza under its wing, chaos will prevail there. This is less terrible than people may think. Chaos would allow Israel to establish buffer zones along the Gaza border without interference. Any entity controlling Gaza would oppose such measures and would resist necessary Israeli measures to reduce terrorism. Chaos may also encourage emigration.

Israel is doomed to live with bad neighbors for the foreseeable future. There is no way to ensure zero terrorism. Israel should avoid adopting a policy of containment and should constantly “mow the grass” to minimize the chances of a major threat emerging across the border. Periodic conflicts may be necessary. If the Jews want a state in their homeland, they need to internalize that Israel will have to live by the sword for many more years.