Clinton Bailey, friend of Ben-Gurion and the Bedouin

Well into his 80s, Clinton Bailey was a man in constant motion. Even when he was just inviting you to sit for one of countless cups of coffee or physically sitting while drinking one of those cups, his mind was always racing. Yet it raced calmly, collectedly, in the way perhaps only the mind of someone who’s shared thousands of cups of coffee with thousands of very different people can.

Even as his memory began to frustratingly fail him, it was better than most people a quarter of his age.

Whenever Clinton was asked a question he wasn’t expecting or needed time to think about, his instinctive response would be his characteristic chuckle followed by a “Well…” 

He’d share conversations he had with elder Bedouin tribesmen in the deserts of the Negev or the Sinai decades ago. Many of the contexts and phrases he’d still remember sharply were remembered only by him, with his interlocutors long passed and their descendants no longer familiar with much of their own culture’s oral tradition.

Fortunately (or strategically), Clinton foresaw this extinction, which is why he dedicated much of his life to preserving those traditions, jeeping from Bedouin encampment to Bedouin encampment with a tape recorder, an encyclopedic knowledge, child-like curiosity, dimpled smile and sensitivity that remained with him until the end.

Almost everyone at his funeral this week – most of whom referred to him by his Hebrew nickname “Itzik” – echoed the same core sentiment: Clinton was someone who truly, naturally cared about others, and in response they truly, naturally cared about him.

From the farther reaches of western Egypt to the deserts of Jordan in the East, his name preceded him. “Dr. Bailey” apparently became a sort of mythical figure. 

Bedouin panel of judges holding court (Photo: Clinton Bailey / National Library of Israel)

Mention of “Dr. Bailey” would bring forth a visceral reverence.

When Israelis would show up at various Bedouin encampments, it was not uncommon for them to be asked if they knew him. One such visitor who happened to actually know Dr. Bailey inquired about the locals’ deep fondness for his friend.

 “Don’t lots of Israelis come through here?” he asked. “Why do you love Dr. Bailey so much?”

They responded that while the other Israelis who came through only cared about themselves, Dr. Bailey cared about them. And, indeed, besides simply preserving their ancient oral tradition – which Clinton saw as closely linked with the most ancient Jewish traditions – he also truly did care about contemporary Bedouin life. He worked diligently to preserve Bedouin history as well as to promote their civil rights in Israel.

Clinton Bailey interviewing Bedouin elders, 1972 (Photo: Boris Carmi). From the Meitar Collection, The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, The National Library of Israel

Generally an optimist, Clinton was ever pragmatic and rational, understanding all too well the complexities of living in this corner of the earth. As an officer in the 1980s in the IDF’s 522 Lebanon liaison unit, Clinton would frequently run alone from Shiite village to Shiite village in southern Lebanon, befriending the locals, gauging if they could be strategic friends or partners.

He apparently believed that at least some of them could, and should have perhaps been preferred over the Maronite Christians with whom Israel became bedfellows. He expressed his opinions to higher echelons of the Israeli military and political establishment, yet those efforts ultimately proved fruitless. 

As a senior adviser to notable military and government officials, Clinton surely had some great stories with prominent people stowed away in that remarkable memory of his, yet he was not one to particularly enjoy name-dropping. He was, nonetheless, certainly proud of his personal friendship with Paula and David Ben-Gurion, a relationship documented in a now-legendary interview he conducted with Israel’s first prime minister shortly before Ben-Gurion passed away.

Clinton is probably the only friend David Ben-Gurion and I have been fortunate enough to share in common, and yet whether he was having coffee with iconic Israeli figures like Ben-Gurion, venerable Bedouin chieftains, or simple people he knew from daily life like me, Clinton always projected warmth and sincerity as he asked how your wife and kids were, shared details about his family reunions in Skiathos, or an epic tale or aphorism from a long-ago desert trek.

He used to say that the traditional Bedouin woke up in the morning with nothing and if they had something by the time they went to bed they considered themselves fortunate. We, on the other hand, wake up with plenty and if any little thing goes wrong, we consider ourselves unfortunate.

Perhaps that perspective was a large part of Clinton’s magic.