was kennan mostly right? >> no. i mean in fact one other thing we should say, one other argument which was a strong one at the time is that they all said war is going to break out between the new state and the arabs and the new jewish state could not and would not win. they were convinced of that. there was no way the jews would win and defeat any arab armies. it would be a blood bath and the the middle east would erupt in fire. that was part of their argument. in fact the main part of the argument, they were totally wrong on that. they didn't think they could defend themselves and they didn't think they could win. certainly the point is -- >> in fairness to the people making it it was an improbable victory. >> yeah. but to a lot of the jewish leaders and palestine they felt in fact they would be able to stand up against the insurmountable odds and they knew that they would be able to and that aside from the transjordan army trained by the british that the arab fighters would be relatively weak and without motivatio

they were not the arguments of kennan and henderson. when he spoke to him it was all a military assessment. and he believed that. >> the gentleman here and then -- >> how significant was the participation of bernard bernstein in the events that you described is this >> bernard bernstein. >> he was counsel to the -- at the united nations to the conference of the jewish organizations? at the time of the partition. >> i would say we researched it probably very little. since his name ever appears anywhere as far as we can see. >> because of the arms embargo, israel was getting all its arms from czechoslovakia. how come israel didn't become a member of the communist bloc? >> i think the labor zionist leadership was not particularly procommunist. there were procommunist elements but the mainstream labor zionism was democrat socialists and considered themselves not friendly to communism. they were glad they would take the support and aid where they could get it from. they were delighted the soviets changed their line for a while and they could