David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the
State of Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
and the first
prime minister of Israel
The prime minister of Israel ( he, רֹאשׁ הַמֶּמְשָׁלָה, Rosh HaMemshala, Head of the Government, Hebrew acronym: he2, רה״מ; ar, رئيس الحكومة, ''Ra'īs al-Ḥukūma'') is the head of government and chief exec ...
. Adopting the name of Ben-Gurion in 1909, he rose to become the preeminent leader of the Jewish community in British-ruled
Mandatory Palestine
Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...
from 1935 until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, which he led until 1963 with a short break in 1954–55.
Ben-Gurion's passion for
Zionism
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and executive head of the
World Zionist Organization
The World Zionist Organization ( he, הַהִסְתַּדְּרוּת הַצִּיּוֹנִית הָעוֹלָמִית; ''HaHistadrut HaTzionit Ha'Olamit''), or WZO, is a non-governmental organization that promotes Zionism. It was founded as the ...
in 1946. As head of the
Jewish Agency
The Jewish Agency for Israel ( he, הסוכנות היהודית לארץ ישראל, translit=HaSochnut HaYehudit L'Eretz Yisra'el) formerly known as The Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. ...
from 1935, and later president of the Jewish Agency Executive, he was the ''de facto'' leader of the Jewish community in Palestine, and largely led its struggle for an independent Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine. On 14 May 1948, he formally proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel, and was the first to sign the
Israeli Declaration of Independence
The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel ( he, הכרזה על הקמת מדינת ישראל), was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 ( 5 Iyar 5708) by David Ben-Gurion, the Executive ...
, which he had helped to write. Ben-Gurion led Israel during the
1948 Arab–Israeli War
The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...
, and united the various Jewish militias into the
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the Israel, State of Israel. It consists of three servic ...
(IDF). Subsequently, he became known as "Israel's
founding father
The following list of national founding figures is a record, by country, of people who were credited with establishing a state. National founders are typically those who played an influential role in setting up the systems of governance, (i.e. ...
".
Following the war, Ben-Gurion served as Israel's first prime minister and
minister of defence
A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in som ...
foreign policy
A State (polity), state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterall ...
was improving relationships with the West Germans. He worked with
Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman who served as the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the first leader of the Christian Dem ...
's government in Bonn, and
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
provided large sums (in the
Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany
The Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany ( German: ''Luxemburger Abkommen'' "Luxembourg Agreement" or ''Wiedergutmachungsabkommen'' "''Wiedergutmachung'' Agreement", Hebrew: ''הסכם השילומים'' ''Hesk ...
) in compensation for
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
's confiscation of Jewish property during
the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
.
In 1954 he resigned as prime minister and minister of defence but remained a member of the
Knesset
The Knesset ( he, הַכְּנֶסֶת ; "gathering" or "assembly") is the unicameral legislature of Israel. As the supreme state body, the Knesset is sovereign and thus has complete control of the entirety of the Israeli government (with ...
. He returned as minister of defence in 1955 after the Lavon Affair and the resignation of
Pinhas Lavon
Pinhas Lavon ( he, פנחס לבון, 12 July 1904 – 24 January 1976) was an Israeli politician, minister and labor leader, best known for the Lavon Affair.
Early life
Lavon was born as Pinhas Lubianiker in the small city of Kopychyntsi in t ...
. Later that year he became prime minister again, following the 1955 elections. Under his leadership, Israel responded aggressively to Arab guerrilla attacks, and in 1956, invaded Egypt along with British and French forces after Egypt nationalised the
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
during the
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression ( ar, العدوان الثلاثي, Al-ʿUdwān aṯ-Ṯulāṯiyy) in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel,Also known as the Suez War or 1956 Wa ...
.
He stepped down from office in 1963, and retired from political life in 1970. He then moved to
Sde Boker
Sde Boker ( he, שְׂדֵה בּוֹקֵר, lit. ''Herding Field'') is a kibbutz in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Best known as the retirement home of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, it falls under the jurisdiction of Ram ...
, a
kibbutz
A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...
in the
Negev
The Negev or Negeb (; he, הַנֶּגֶב, hanNegév; ar, ٱلنَّقَب, an-Naqab) is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southe ...
Płońsk
Płońsk (; yi, פּלאָנסק, Plonsk) is a town in central Poland with 22,500 inhabitants (2010).
Situated at the Płonka river in the historic region of Mazovia, it is the seat of Płońsk County in the Masovian Voivodeship.
History
Acc ...
in
Congress Poland
Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...
then part of the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
. His father, Avigdor Grün, was a ''"pokątnym doradcą"'' (secret adviser), navigating his clients through the often corrupt Imperial legal system. Following the publication of
Theodore Herzl
Theodor Herzl; hu, Herzl Tivadar; Hebrew name given at his brit milah: Binyamin Ze'ev (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish lawyer, journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer who was the father of modern p ...
's ''
Der Judenstaat
''Der Judenstaat'' (German, literally ''The State of the Jews'', commonly rendered as ''The Jewish State'') is a pamphlet written by Theodor Herzl and published in February 1896 in Leipzig and Vienna by M. Breitenstein's Verlags-Buchhandlung. It ...
'' in 1896 Avigdor co-founded a
Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
group called ''Beni Zion''Children of Zion. In 1900 it had a membership of 200. David was the youngest of three boys with an older and younger sister. His mother, Scheindel (Broitman), died of
sepsis
Sepsis, formerly known as septicemia (septicaemia in British English) or blood poisoning, is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. This initial stage is follo ...
following a stillbirth in 1897. It was her eleventh pregnancy. Two years later his father remarried. Ben-Gurion's birth certificate, found in Poland in 2003, indicated that he had a twin brother who died shortly after birth. Between the ages of 5 and 13 Ben Gurion attended 5 different heders as well as compulsory Russian classes. Two of the heders were 'modern' and taught in
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
rather than
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
. His father could not afford to enroll Ben-Gurion in Płońsk's Beth midrash so Ben Gurion's formal education ended after his Bar Mitzvah. At the age of 14 he and two friends formed a youth club, ''Ezra'', promoting Hebrew studies and emigration to the Holy Land. The group ran Hebrew classes for local youth and in 1903 collected funds for the victims of the
Kishinev pogrom
The Kishinev pogrom or Kishinev massacre was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Kishinev (modern Chișinău, Moldova), then the capital of the Bessarabia Governorate in the Russian Empire, on . A second pogrom erupted in the city in Octob ...
. One biographer writes that ''Ezra'' had 150 members within a year.Teveth (1987) p.14 A different source estimates the group never had more than 'several dozen' members.
In 1904 Ben Gurion moved to
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
where he hoped to enroll in the Warsaw Mechanical-Technical School founded by Hipolit Wawelberg. He did not have sufficient qualifications to matriculate and took work teaching Hebrew in a Warsaw heder. Inspired by
Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
he had become a vegetarian. He became involved in Zionist politics and in October 1905 he joined the clandestine Social-Democratic Jewish Workers' Party''
Poalei Zion
Poale Zion (also spelled Poalei Tziyon or Poaley Syjon, meaning "Workers of Zion") was a movement of Marxist–Zionist Jewish workers founded in various cities of Poland, Europe and the Russian Empire in about the turn of the 20th century after ...
''. Two months later he was the delegate from Płońsk at a local conference. While in Warsaw the
Russian Revolution of 1905
The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...
broke out and he was in the city during the clamp down that followed; he was arrested twice, the second time he was held for two weeks and only released with the help of his father. In December 1905 he returned to Płońsk as a full-time Poalei Zion operative. There he worked to oppose the anti-Zionist Bund who were trying to establish a base. He also organised a strike over working conditions amongst garment workers. He was known to use intimidatory tactics, such as extorting money from wealthy Jews at gunpoint to raise funds for Jewish workers.Adam Shatz 'We Are Conquerors,'
London Review of Books
The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published twice monthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews.
History
The ''London Review of ...
Vol. 41 No. 20, 24 October 2019
Ben-Gurion discussed his hometown in his memoirs, saying:
"For many of us, anti-Semitic feeling had little to do with our dedication o Zionism I personally never suffered anti-Semitic persecution. Płońsk was remarkably free of it ... Nevertheless, and I think this very significant, it was Płońsk that sent the highest proportion of Jews to Eretz Israel from any town in Poland of comparable size. We emigrated not for negative reasons of escape but for the positive purpose of rebuilding a homeland ... Life in Płońsk was peaceful enough. There were three main communities: Russians, Jews and Poles. ... The number of Jews and Poles in the city were roughly equal, about five thousand each. The Jews, however, formed a compact, centralized group occupying the innermost districts whilst the Poles were more scattered, living in outlying areas and shading off into the peasantry. Consequently, when a gang of Jewish boys met a Polish gang the latter would almost inevitably represent a single suburb and thus be poorer in fighting potential than the Jews who even if their numbers were initially fewer could quickly call on reinforcements from the entire quarter. Far from being afraid of them, they were rather afraid of us. In general, however, relations were amicable, though distant."
In autumn of 1906 he left Poland to go to Palestine. He travelled with his sweetheart Rachel Nelkin and her mother, as well as Shlomo Zemach his comrade from ''Ezra''. His voyage was funded by his father.
Ottoman Empire and Constantinople
Immediately on landing in
Jaffa
Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo ( he, יָפוֹ, ) and in Arabic Yafa ( ar, يَافَا) and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is known for its association with the b ...
, 7 September 1906, Ben Gurion set off, on foot, in a group of fourteen, to Petah Tikva. It was the largest of the 13 Jewish agricultural settlements and consisted of 80 households with a population of nearly 1500; of these around 200 were
Second Aliyah
The Second Aliyah ( he, העלייה השנייה, ''HaAliyah HaShniya'') was an aliyah (Jewish emigration to Palestine) that took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 35,000 Jews immigrated into Ottoman-ruled Palestine, mos ...
pioneers like Ben Gurion. He found work as a day labourer, waiting each morning hoping to be chosen by an overseer. Jewish workers found it difficult competing with local villagers who were more skilled and prepared to work for less. Ben Gurion was shocked at the number of Arabs employed. In November he caught
malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...
and the doctor advised he return to Europe. By the time he left Petah Tikva in summer of 1907 he had worked an average 10 days a month which frequently left him with no money for food. He wrote long letters in Hebrew to his father and friends. They rarely revealed how difficult life was. Others who had come from Płońsk were writing about tuberculosis, cholera and people dying of hunger.
On his disembarkation at Jaffa Ben Gurion had been spotted by
Israel Shochat
Israel Shochat (;1886–1962) was a founder of and a key figure in Bar-Giora and Hashomer, two of the precursors of the Israel Defense Forces.
Biography Russia and Germany
Israel Shochat was born in 1886 in Lyskovo, in the Grodno Governorate of t ...
who had arrived two years previously and had established a group of around 25 Poale Zion followers. Shochat made a point of inspecting new arrivals looking for recruits. A month after his arrival at Petah Tikva Shochat invited Ben Gurion to attend the founding conference of the ''Jewish Social Democratic Workers' Party in the Land of Israel'' in Jaffa. The conference, 4–6 October 1906, was attended by 60 or so people. Shochat engineered the elections so that Ben Gurion was elected onto the 5-man Central Committee and the 10-man Manifesto Committee. He also arranged that Ben Gurion was chosen as chairman of the sessions. These Ben Gurion conducted in Hebrew, forbidding the translation of his address into Russian or Yiddish. The conference was divided: a large faction''Rostovians''wanted to create a single Arab-Jewish proletariat. This Shochat and Ben Gurion opposed. The conference delegated the Manifesto Committee the task of deciding the new party's objectives. They produced ''The
Ramleh
Ramla or Ramle ( he, רַמְלָה, ''Ramlā''; ar, الرملة, ''ar-Ramleh'') is a city in the Central District of Israel. Today, Ramle is one of Israel's mixed cities, with both a significant Jewish and Arab populations.
The city was f ...
Program'' which was approved by a second smaller 15-man conference held in Jaffa the following January 1907. The program stated "the party aspires to political independence of the Jewish People in this country." All activities were to be conducted in Hebrew; there should be segregation of the Jewish and the Arab economies; and a Jewish trade union was to be established. Three members of the Central Committee resigned and Ben Gurion and Shochat continued meeting weekly in Jaffa or
Ben Shemen
Ben Shemen ( he, בֶּן שֶׁמֶן, ''lit.'' very fruitful) is a moshav in central Israel. Located around four kilometres east of Lod, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hevel Modi'in Regional Council. In it had a population of .
Etymolog ...
where Shochat was working. Ben Gurion walked to the meetings from Petah Tikva until he moved to Jaffa where he gave occasional Hebrew lessons. His political activity resulted in the establishment of three small trade unions amongst some tailors, carpenters and shoemakers. He set up the ''Jaffa Professional Trade Union Alliance'' with 75 members. He and Shochat also brokered a settlement to a strike at the Rishon Le Zion winery where six workers had been sacked. After three months the two-man Central Committee was dissolved, partly because, at that time, Ben Gurion was less militant than Shochat and the Rostovians. Ben Gurion returned to Petah Tikva.
During this time Ben Gurion sent a letter to ''Yiddish Kemfer'' (The Jewish Fighter), a Yiddish newspaper in New York City. It was an appeal for funds and was the first time something written by Ben Gurion was published.
The arrival of
Yitzhak Ben Zvi
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi ( he, יִצְחָק בֶּן־צְבִי ''Yitshak Ben-Tsvi''; 24 November 188423 April 1963) was a historian, Labor Zionist leader and the longest-serving President of Israel.
Biography
Born in Poltava in the Russian Empir ...
in April 1907 revitalised the local Poale Zion. Eighty followers attended a conference in May at which Ben Zvi was elected onto a two-man Central Committee and all Ben Gurion's policies were reversed: Yiddish, not Hebrew, was the language to be used; the future lay with a united Jewish and Arab
proletariat
The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philo ...
. Further disappointment came when Ben Zvi and Shochat were elected as representatives to go to the
World Zionist Congress
The Zionist Congress was established in 1897 by Theodor Herzl as the supreme organ of the Zionist Organization (ZO) and its legislative authority. In 1960 the names were changed to World Zionist Congress ( he, הקונגרס הציוני העו ...
. Ben Gurion came last of five candidates. He was not aware that at the next gathering, on Ben Zvi's return, a secret para-military group was set up Bar-Gioraunder Shochat's leadership. Distancing himself from Poale Zion activism Ben Gurion, who had been a day-labourer at
Kfar Saba
Kfar Saba ( he, כְּפַר סָבָא), officially Kefar Sava, is a city in the Sharon region, of the Central District of Israel. In 2019 it had a population of 110,456, making it the 16th-largest city in Israel. The population of Kfar Saba i ...
, moved to Rishon Lezion where he remained for two months. He made detailed plans with which he tried to entice his father to come and be a farmer.
In October 1907, on Shlomo Zemach's suggestion, Ben-Gurion moved to
Sejera
Ilaniya ( he, אִילָנִיָּה) is a moshav in northern Israel. Also known as Sejera, after the adjacent Arab village al-Shajara, it was the first Jewish settlement in the Lower Galilee and played an important role in the Jewish settlement o ...
. An agricultural training farm had been established at Sejera in the 1880s and since then a number of family-owned farms, moshavah, had been established forming a community of around 200 Jews. It was one of the most remote colonies in the foothills of north-eastern Galilee. It took the two young men three days to walk there.
Coincidently at the same time Bar Giora, now with about 20 members and calling themselves 'the collective' but still led by Shochat, took on the operating of the training farm. Ben Gurion found work in the farm but, excluded from 'the collective', he later became a labourer for one of the moshav families. One of the first acts of 'the collective' was organising sacking of the farm's circassian nightwatchman. As a result, shots were fired at the farms every night for several months. Guns were brought and the workforce armed. Ben Gurion took turns patrolling the farm at night.
In the autumn of 1908 Ben Gurion returned to Plonsk to be conscripted into the
army
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
and avoid his father facing a heavy fine. He immediately deserted and returned to Sejera, travelling, via Germany, with forged papers.
On 12 April 1909 two Jews from Sejera were killed in clashes with local Arabs following the death of a villager from
Kfar Kanna
Kafr Kanna ( ar, كفر كنا, ''Kafr Kanā''; he, כַּפְר כַּנָּא) is an Arab town in the Galilee, part of the Northern District of Israel. It is associated by Christians with the New Testament village of Cana, where Jesus tur ...
, shot in an attempted robbery. There is little conformation of Ben Gurion's accounts of his part in this event.
Later that summer Ben Gurion moved to
Zichron Yaakov
Zikhron Ya'akov ( he, זִכְרוֹן יַעֲקֹב, ''lit.'' "Jacob's Memorial"; often shortened to just ''Zikhron'') is a town in Israel, south of Haifa, and part of the Haifa District. It is located at the southern end of the Carmel mounta ...
. From where the following spring he was invited, by Ben Zvi, to join the staff of Paole Zion's new Hebrew periodical, Ha'ahdut (The Unity), which was being established in Jerusalem. They needed his fluency in Hebrew for translating and proof reading.Teveth 1987 p.72 It was the end of his career as a farm labourer. The first three editions came out monthly with an initial run of 1000 copies. It then became a weekly with a print run of 450 copies. He contributed 15 articles over the first year, using various pen names, eventually settling for Ben Gurion. The adopting of
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
names was common amongst those who remained during the
Second Aliyah
The Second Aliyah ( he, העלייה השנייה, ''HaAliyah HaShniya'') was an aliyah (Jewish emigration to Palestine) that took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 35,000 Jews immigrated into Ottoman-ruled Palestine, mos ...
. He chose Ben Gurion after the historic
Joseph ben Gurion
Joseph ben Gurion was according to Josephus one of the chief leaders of the First Jewish–Roman War, which erupted in the year 66 in Roman Judea. Along with Ananus ben Ananus,Ben Zion, S. ''A Roadmap to the Heavens: An Anthropological Study of H ...
.
In the spring of 1911, faced with the collapse of the Second Aliyah, Poale Zion's leadership decided the future lay in "Ottomanisation". Ben Zvi, Manya and
Israel Shochat
Israel Shochat (;1886–1962) was a founder of and a key figure in Bar-Giora and Hashomer, two of the precursors of the Israel Defense Forces.
Biography Russia and Germany
Israel Shochat was born in 1886 in Lyskovo, in the Grodno Governorate of t ...
announced their intention to move to
Istanbul
Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...
. Ben Zvi and Shochat planned to study law; Ben Gurion was to join them but first needed to learn Turkish, spending eight months in
Salonika
Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...
, at that time the most advanced Jewish community in the area. Whilst studying he had to conceal that he was Ashkanazi due to local
Sephardic
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), ...
prejudices. Ben Zvi obtained a forged secondary school certificate so Ben Gurion could join him in Istanbul University. Ben Gurion was entirely dependent on funding from his father, while Ben Zvi found work teaching. Struggling with ill health Ben Gurion spent some time in hospital.
Ben-Gurion in America 1915–1918
Ben-Gurion was at sea, returning from Istanbul, when the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
broke out. He was not amongst the thousands of foreign nationals deported in December 1914. Based in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
he and Ben Zvi recruited forty Jews into a Jewish militia to assist the Ottoman Army. Despite his pro-Ottoman declarations he was deported to Egypt in March 1915. From there he made his way to the United States, arriving in May. For the next 4 months Ben-Gurion and Ben Zvi embarked on a speaking tour planned to visit
Poale Zion
Poale Zion (also spelled Poalei Tziyon or Poaley Syjon, meaning "Workers of Zion") was a movement of Marxist–Zionist Jewish workers founded in various cities of Poland, Europe and the Russian Empire in about the turn of the 20th century after ...
groups in 35 cities in an attempt to raise a pioneer army,
Hechalutz
HeHalutz or HeChalutz ( he, הֶחָלוּץ, lit. "The Pioneer") was a Jewish youth movement that trained young people for agricultural settlement in the Land of Israel. It became an umbrella organization of the pioneering Zionist youth moveme ...
, of 10,000 men to fight on the Ottoman side. The tour was a disappointment. Audiences were small; Poale Zion had fewer than 3,000 members, mostly in the New York area. Ben-Gurion was hospitalised with
diphtheria
Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild clinical course, but in some outbreaks more than 10% of those diagnosed with the disease may die. Signs and s ...
for two weeks and only spoke on 5 occasions and was poorly received. Ben Zvi spoke to 14 groups as well as an event in New York City and succeeded in recruiting 44 volunteers for Hechalutz; Ben-Gurion recruited 19. Ben-Gurion embarked on a second tour in December, speaking at 19 meetings, mostly in small towns with larger events in
Minneapolis
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
and
Galveston
Galveston ( ) is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a population of 47,743 in 2010, is the county seat of surrounding Ga ...
. Due to the lack of awareness of Poale Zion's activities in Palestine it was decided to republish ''Yizkor'' in
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
. The
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
original was published in
Jaffa
Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo ( he, יָפוֹ, ) and in Arabic Yafa ( ar, يَافَا) and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is known for its association with the b ...
in 1911; it consisted of eulogies to
Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
martyrs and included an account by Ben-Gurion of his Petah Tikva and Sejera experiences. The first edition appeared in February 1916 and was an immediate success; all 3,500 copies were sold. A second edition of 16,000 was published in August.
Martin Buber
Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 –
June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism ...
wrote the introduction to the 1918 German edition. The follow-up was conceived as an anthology of work from Poale Zion leaders; in fact Ben-Gurion took over as editor, writing the introduction and two-thirds of the text. He suspended all his Paole Zion activities and spent most of the next 18 months in
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...
. Ben Zvi, originally designated as co-editor, contributed a section on Jewish history in which he expounded the theory that the
fellahin
A fellah ( ar, فَلَّاح ; feminine ; plural ''fellaheen'' or ''fellahin'', , ) is a peasant, usually a farmer or Agriculture, agricultural laborer in the Middle East and North Africa. The word derives from the Arabic language, Arabic wor ...
currently living in the area were descendants of pre- Roman conquest Jews. ''Eretz Israel – Past and Present'' was published in April 1918. It cost $2 and was 500 pages long, over twice the length of ''Yizkor''. It was an immediate success, selling 7,000 copies in 4 months; second and third editions were printed. Total sales of 25,000 copies made a profit of $20,000 for Poale Zion. It made David Ben-Gurion the most prominent Poale Zion leader in America.
In May 1918 Ben-Gurion joined the newly formed
Jewish Legion
The Jewish Legion (1917–1921) is an unofficial name used to refer to five battalions of Jewish volunteers, the 38th to 42nd (Service) Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers in the British Army, raised to fight against the Ottoman Empire during ...
of the
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
Windsor, Nova Scotia
Windsor is a community located in Hants County, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is a service centre for the western part of the county and is situated on Highway 101.
The community has a history dating back to its use by the Mi'kmaq Nation for sev ...
. He volunteered for the 38th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, one of the four which constituted the Jewish Legion. His unit fought against the Ottomans as part of
Chaytor's Force
Chaytor's Force (13 August – 31 October 1918) named after its commander, Major General Edward Chaytor, was a composite division-sized force which served in the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of t ...
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
hospital with dysentery. In 1918, after a period of guarding prisoners of war in the Egyptian desert, his battalion was transferred to
Sarafand Sarafand or Sarafend may refer to:
Places
* Sarafand, Lebanon, also spelled Sarafend
** Sarepta, an ancient Phoenician city at the location of the modern Lebanese town
* Tzrifin, area in central Israel previously known as "Sarafand" or "Sarafend", ...
. On 13 December 1918 he was demoted from corporal to private, fined 3 days' pay and transferred to the lowest company in the battalion. He had been 5 days absent without leave visiting friends in
Jaffa
Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo ( he, יָפוֹ, ) and in Arabic Yafa ( ar, يَافَا) and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is known for its association with the b ...
. He was demobilised in early 1919.
Marriage and family
One of Ben Gurion's companions when he made the
Aliyah
Aliyah (, ; he, עֲלִיָּה ''ʿălīyyā'', ) is the immigration of Jews from Jewish diaspora, the diaspora to, historically, the geographical Land of Israel, which is in the modern era chiefly represented by the Israel, State of Israel ...
was Rachel Nelkin. Her step-father, Reb Simcha Isaac, was the leading Zionist in Płońsk, and they met three years previously at one of his meetings. It was expected that their relationship would continue when they landed in Jaffa but he shut her out after she was fired on her first day labouringmanuring the citrus groves of Petah Tikva.
Whilst in New York City in 1915, he met Russian-born Paula Munweis and they married in 1917. In November 1919, after an 18-month separation, Paula and their daughter Geula joined Ben Gurion in
Jaffa
Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo ( he, יָפוֹ, ) and in Arabic Yafa ( ar, يَافَا) and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is known for its association with the b ...
. It was the first time he met his one-year-old daughter. The couple had three children: a son, Amos, and two daughters, Geula Ben-Eliezer and Renana Leshem. Already pregnant with their first child, Amos married Mary Callow, an Irish
gentile
Gentile () is a word that usually means "someone who is not a Jew". Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, sometimes use the term ''gentile'' to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is generally used as a synonym fo ...
, and although Reform rabbi
Joachim Prinz
Joachim Prinz (May 10, 1902 – September 30, 1988) was a German-American rabbi who was outspoken against Nazism and became a Zionist leader. As a young rabbi in Berlin, he was forced to confront the rise of Nazism, and eventually emigrated t ...
converted her to Judaism soon after, neither the Palestine rabbinate nor her mother-in-law Paula Ben-Gurion considered her a real Jew until she underwent an Orthodox conversion many years later. Amos became Deputy Inspector-General of the
Israel Police
The Israel Police ( he, משטרת ישראל, ''Mišteret Yisra'el''; ar, شرطة إسرائيل, ''Shurtat Isrāʼīl'') is the civilian police force of Israel. As with most other police forces in the world, its duties include crime fightin ...
, and also the director-general of a textile factory. He and Mary had six granddaughters from their two daughters and a son, Alon, who married a
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
gentile. Geula had two sons and a daughter, and Renana, who worked as a microbiologist at the
Israel Institute for Biological Research Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) is an Israeli research and development laboratory It is under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister's Office that works in close cooperation with Israeli government agencies. IIBR has many public p ...
, had a son.
Zionist leadership between 1919 and 1948
After the death of theorist Ber Borochov, the left-wing and centrist of Poalei Zion split in February 1919 with Ben-Gurion and his friend Berl Katznelson leading the centrist faction of the
Labor Zionist
Labor Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת סוֹצְיָאלִיסְטִית, ) or socialist Zionism ( he, תְּנוּעָת הָעַבוֹדָה, label=none, translit=Tnuʽat haʽavoda) refers to the left-wing, socialist variation of Zionism. ...
movement. The moderate Poalei Zion formed
Ahdut HaAvoda
Ahdut HaAvoda ( he, אַחְדוּת הַעֲבוֹדָה, lit. ''Labour Unity'') was the name used by a series of political parties. Ahdut HaAvoda in its first incarnation was led by David Ben-Gurion. It was first established during the perio ...
with Ben-Gurion as leader in March 1919.
In 1920 he assisted in the formation of the
Histadrut
Histadrut, or the General Organization of Workers in Israel, originally ( he, ההסתדרות הכללית של העובדים בארץ ישראל, ''HaHistadrut HaKlalit shel HaOvdim B'Eretz Yisrael''), is Israel's national trade union center ...
, the Zionist Labor Federation in Palestine, and served as its general secretary from 1921 until 1935. At Ahdut HaAvoda's 3rd Congress, held in 1924 at
Ein Harod
Ein Harod ( he, עֵין חֲרוֹד) was a kibbutz in northern Israel near Mount Gilboa. Founded in 1921, it became the center of Mandatory Palestine's kibbutz movement, hosting the headquarters of the largest kibbutz organisation, HaKibbutz HaM ...
,
Shlomo Kaplansky
Shlomo Kaplansky ( he, שלמה קפלנסקי; born 7 March 1884 in Białystok - died 7 December 1950 in Haifa) was a Labour Zionist politician, who served as the secretary of the World Union of Poalei Zion. During the 1920s he was a leading ad ...
, a veteran leader from
Poalei Zion
Poale Zion (also spelled Poalei Tziyon or Poaley Syjon, meaning "Workers of Zion") was a movement of Marxist–Zionist Jewish workers founded in various cities of Poland, Europe and the Russian Empire in about the turn of the 20th century after ...
, proposed that the party should support the British Mandatory authorities' plans for setting up an elected legislative council in Palestine. He argued that a Parliament, even with an Arab majority, was the way forward. Ben-Gurion, already emerging as the leader of the
Yishuv
Yishuv ( he, ישוב, literally "settlement"), Ha-Yishuv ( he, הישוב, ''the Yishuv''), or Ha-Yishuv Ha-Ivri ( he, הישוב העברי, ''the Hebrew Yishuv''), is the body of Jewish residents in the Land of Israel (corresponding to the ...
, succeeded in getting Kaplansky's ideas rejected.
In 1930,
Hapoel Hatzair
Hapoel Hatzair ( he, הפועל הצעיר, "The Young Worker") was a Zionist group active in Palestine from 1905 until 1930. It was founded by A.D. Gordon, Yosef Aharonovich, Yosef Sprinzak and followed a non-Marxist, Zionist, socialist agenda ...
Ahdut HaAvoda
Ahdut HaAvoda ( he, אַחְדוּת הַעֲבוֹדָה, lit. ''Labour Unity'') was the name used by a series of political parties. Ahdut HaAvoda in its first incarnation was led by David Ben-Gurion. It was first established during the perio ...
joined forces to create
Mapai
Mapai ( he, מַפָּא"י, an acronym for , ''Mifleget Poalei Eretz Yisrael'', lit. "Workers' Party of the Land of Israel") was a democratic socialist political party in Israel, and was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger in ...
, the more moderate Zionist labour party (it was still a left-wing organisation, but not as far-left as other factions) under Ben-Gurion's leadership. In the 1940s the left-wing of Mapai broke away to form Mapam. Labor Zionism became the dominant tendency in the
World Zionist Organization
The World Zionist Organization ( he, הַהִסְתַּדְּרוּת הַצִּיּוֹנִית הָעוֹלָמִית; ''HaHistadrut HaTzionit Ha'Olamit''), or WZO, is a non-governmental organization that promotes Zionism. It was founded as the ...
and in 1935 Ben-Gurion became chairman of the executive committee of the
Jewish Agency
The Jewish Agency for Israel ( he, הסוכנות היהודית לארץ ישראל, translit=HaSochnut HaYehudit L'Eretz Yisra'el) formerly known as The Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. ...
, a role he kept until the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
During the
1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine
The 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, later known as The Great Revolt (''al-Thawra al- Kubra'') or The Great Palestinian Revolt (''Thawrat Filastin al-Kubra''), was a popular nationalist uprising by Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine a ...
, Ben-Gurion instigated a policy of restraint ("
Havlagah
Havlagah ( he, ההבלגה, , "The Restraint") was a strategic policy used by the Haganah members with regard to retribution taken against Arab groups who were attacking the Jewish settlements during the British Mandate of Palestine. Its core p ...
") in which the
Haganah
Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the ...
and other Jewish groups did not retaliate for Arab attacks against Jewish civilians, concentrating only on self-defense. In 1937, the
Peel Commission
The Peel Commission, formally known as the Palestine Royal Commission, was a British Royal Commission of Inquiry, headed by Lord Peel, appointed in 1936 to investigate the causes of unrest in Mandatory Palestine, which was administered by Gre ...
recommended partitioning Palestine into Jewish and Arab areas and Ben-Gurion supported this policy. This led to conflict with
Ze'ev Jabotinsky
Ze'ev Jabotinsky ( he, זְאֵב זַ׳בּוֹטִינְסְקִי, ''Ze'ev Zhabotinski'';, ''Wolf Zhabotinski'' 17 October 1880 – 3 August 1940), born Vladimir Yevgenyevich Zhabotinsky, was a Russian Jewish Revisionist Zionist leade ...
who opposed partition and as a result Jabotinsky's supporters split with the Haganah and abandoned Havlagah.
The house where he lived from 1931 on, and for part of each year after 1953, is now a
historic house museum
A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that has been transformed into a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a ...
in Tel Aviv, the " Ben-Gurion House". He also lived in London for some months in 1941.
In 1946, Ben-Gurion and North Vietnam's Politburo chairman
Ho Chi Minh
(: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as (' Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), (' Old father of the people') and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as P ...
became very friendly when they stayed at the same hotel in Paris. Ho Chi Minh offered Ben-Gurion a Jewish home-in-exile in Vietnam. Ben-Gurion declined, telling Ho Chi Minh: "I am certain we shall be able to establish a Jewish Government in Palestine."
Views and opinions
Decisiveness and pragmatism
According to his biographer
Tom Segev
Tom Segev ( he, תום שגב; born March 1, 1945) is an Israeli historian, author and journalist. He is associated with Israel's New Historians, a group challenging many of the country's traditional narratives.
Biography
Segev was born in Jeru ...
, Ben-Gurion deeply admired
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
and intended to be a 'Zionist Lenin'. In ''Ben-Gurion: A Political Life'' by Shimon Peres and David Landau, Peres recalls his first meeting with Ben-Gurion as a young activist in the No'ar Ha'Oved youth movement. Ben-Gurion gave him a lift, and out of the blue told him why he preferred Lenin to Trotsky: "Lenin was Trotsky’s inferior in terms of intellect", but Lenin, unlike Trotsky, "was decisive". When confronted with a dilemma, Trotsky would do what Ben-Gurion despised about the old-style diaspora Jews: he manoeuvred; as opposed to Lenin, who would cut the Gordian knot, accepting losses while focusing on the essentials. In Peres' opinion, the essence of Ben-Gurion's life work were "the decisions he made at critical junctures in Israel's history", and none was as important as the acceptance of the 1947 partition plan, a painful compromise which gave the emerging Jewish state little more than a fighting chance, but which, according to Peres, enabled the establishment of the State of Israel.
Attitude towards Arabs
Ben-Gurion published two volumes setting out his views on relations between Zionists and the Arab world: ''We and Our Neighbors'', published in 1931, and ''My Talks with Arab Leaders'' published in 1967. Ben-Gurion believed in the equal rights of Arabs who remained in and would become citizens of Israel. He was quoted as saying, "We must start working in Jaffa. Jaffa must employ Arab workers. And there is a question of their wages. I believe that they should receive the same wage as a Jewish worker. An Arab has also the right to be elected president of the state, should he be elected by all."
Ben-Gurion recognised the strong attachment of
Palestinian Arabs
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
to the land. In an address to the United Nations on 2 October 1947, he doubted the likelihood of peace:
This is our native land; it is not as birds of passage that we return to it. But it is situated in an area engulfed by Arabic-speaking people, mainly followers of Islam. Now, if ever, we must do more than make peace with them; we must achieve collaboration and alliance on equal terms. Remember what Arab delegations from Palestine and its neighbors say in the General Assembly and in other places: talk of Arab-Jewish amity sound fantastic, for the Arabs do not wish it, they will not sit at the same table with us, they want to treat us as they do the Jews of Bagdad, Cairo, and Damascus.
Nahum Goldmann
Nahum Goldmann ( he, נחום גולדמן) (July 10, 1895 – August 29, 1982) was a leading Zionist. He was a founder of the World Jewish Congress and its president from 1951 to 1978, and was also president of the World Zionist Organization from ...
criticised Ben-Gurion for what he viewed as a confrontational approach to the Arab world. Goldmann wrote, "Ben-Gurion is the man principally responsible for the anti-Arab policy, because it was he who molded the thinking of generations of Israelis."Nahum Goldmann, ''The Jewish Paradox'' A Personal Memoir, translated by Steve Cox, 1978, , pp. 98, 99, 100
Simha Flapan
Simha Flapan (1911–1987) was an Israeli historian and politician. He is known for his book ''The Birth of Israel: Myths And Realities'', published in the year of his death.
Biography
Simha Flapan was born on 27 January 1911 in Tomaszów Mazowi ...
quoted Ben-Gurion as stating in 1938: "I believe in our power, in our power which will grow, and if it will grow agreement will come..."
In 1909, Ben-Gurion attempted to learn Arabic but gave up. He later became fluent in Turkish. The only other languages he was able to use when in discussions with Arab leaders were English, and to a lesser extent, French.
Attitude towards the British
The British 1939 White paper stipulated that Jewish immigration to Palestine was to be limited to 15,000 a year for the first five years, and would subsequently be contingent on Arab consent. Restrictions were also placed on the rights of Jews to buy land from Arabs. After this Ben-Gurion changed his policy towards the British, stating: "Peace in Palestine is not the best situation for thwarting the policy of the White Paper". Ben-Gurion believed a peaceful solution with the Arabs had no chance and soon began preparing the
Yishuv
Yishuv ( he, ישוב, literally "settlement"), Ha-Yishuv ( he, הישוב, ''the Yishuv''), or Ha-Yishuv Ha-Ivri ( he, הישוב העברי, ''the Hebrew Yishuv''), is the body of Jewish residents in the Land of Israel (corresponding to the ...
for war. According to Teveth "through his campaign to mobilize the Yishuv in support of the British war effort, he strove to build the nucleus of a 'Hebrew Army', and his success in this endeavor later brought victory to Zionism in the struggle to establish a Jewish state."
During the Second World War, Ben-Gurion encouraged the
Jewish population
As of 2020, the world's "core" Jewish population (those identifying as Jews above all else) was estimated at 15 million, 0.2% of the 8 billion worldwide population. This number rises to 18 million with the addition of the "connected" Jewish pop ...
to volunteer for the
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
. He famously told Jews to "support the British as if there is no White Paper and oppose the White Paper as if there is no war". About 10% of the Jewish population of Palestine volunteered for the British Armed Forces, including many women. At the same time Ben-Gurion assisted the illegal immigration of thousands of European Jewish refugees to Palestine during a period when the British placed heavy restrictions on Jewish immigration.
In 1944, the
Irgun
Irgun • Etzel
, image = Irgun.svg , image_size = 200px
, caption = Irgun emblem. The map shows both Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan, which the Irgun claimed in its entirety for a future Jewish state. The acronym "Etzel" i ...
and Lehi, two Jewish right-wing armed groups, declared a rebellion against British rule and began attacking British administrative and police targets. Ben-Gurion and other mainstream Zionist leaders opposed armed action against the British, and after Lehi assassinated
Lord Moyne
Walter Edward Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne, DSO & Bar, PC (29 March 1880 – 6 November 1944), was an Anglo-Irish politician and businessman. He served as the British minister of state in the Middle East until November 1944, when he was assass ...
, the British Minister of State in the Middle East, decided to stop it by force. While Lehi was convinced to suspend operations, the Irgun refused and as a result, the
Haganah
Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the ...
began supplying intelligence to the British enabling them to arrest Irgun members, and abducting and often torturing Irgun members, handing some over to the British while keeping others detained in secret Haganah prisons. This campaign, which was called the
Saison
Saison (French, "season," ) is a pale ale that is highly carbonated, fruity, spicy, and often bottle conditioned. It was historically brewed with low alcohol levels, but modern productions of the style have moderate to high levels of alcohol. ...
or "Hunting Season", left the Irgun unable to continue operations as they struggled to survive. Irgun leader Menachem Begin ordered his fighters not to retaliate so as to prevent a civil war. The Saison became increasingly controversial in the Yishuv, including within the ranks of the Haganah, and it was aborted at the end of March 1945.Hoffman, Bruce: ''Anonymous Soldiers'' (2015)Bell, Bowyer J.: ''Terror out of Zion'' (1976)
At the end of World War II, the Zionist leadership in Palestine had expected a British decision to establish a Jewish state. However, it became clear that the British had no intention of immediately establishing a Jewish state and that limits on Jewish immigration would remain for the time being. As a result, with Ben-Gurion's approval the Haganah entered into a secret alliance with the Irgun and Lehi called the
Jewish Resistance Movement
The Jewish Resistance Movement ( he, תנועת המרי העברי, ''Tnu'at HaMeri HaIvri'', literally ''Hebrew Rebellion Movement''), also called the United Resistance Movement (URM), was an alliance of the Zionist paramilitary organizations H ...
in October 1945 and participated in attacks against the British. In June 1946, the British launched
Operation Agatha
Operation Agatha (Saturday, June 29, 1946), sometimes called Black Sabbath ( he, השבת השחורה) or Black Saturday because it began on the Jewish sabbath, was a police and military operation conducted by the British authorities in Mandato ...
, a large police and military operation throughout Palestine, searching for arms and arresting Jewish leaders and Haganah members in order to stop the attacks and find documentary evidence of the alliance the British suspected existed between the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi. The British had intended to detain Ben-Gurion during the operation but he was visiting Paris at the time. The British stored the documents they had captured from the Jewish Agency headquarters in the
King David Hotel
The King David Hotel ( he, מלון המלך דוד, Malon ha-Melekh David; ar, فندق الملك داود) is a 5-star hotel in Jerusalem and a member of The Leading Hotels of the World. Opened in 1931, the hotel was built with locally qua ...
, which was being used as a military and administrative headquarters. Ben-Gurion agreed to the Irgun's plan to bomb the King David Hotel in order to destroy incriminating documents that Ben-Gurion feared would prove that the Haganah had been participating in the violent insurrection against the British in cooperation with the Irgun and Lehi with the approval of himself and other Jewish Agency officials. However, Ben-Gurion asked that the operation be delayed, but the Irgun refused. The Irgun carried out the
King David Hotel bombing
The British administrative headquarters for Mandatory Palestine, housed in the southern wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, were bombed in a terrorist attack on 22 July 1946 by the militant right-wing Zionist underground organization the ...
in July 1946, killing 91 people. Ben-Gurion publicly condemned the bombing. In the aftermath of the bombing, Ben-Gurion ordered that the Jewish Resistance Movement be dissolved. From then on, the Irgun and Lehi continued to regularly attack the British, but the Haganah rarely did so, and while Ben-Gurion along with other mainstream Zionist leaders publicly condemned the Irgun and Lehi attacks, in practice the Haganah under their direction rarely cooperated with the British in attempting to suppress the insurgency.
Due to the Jewish insurgency, bad publicity over the restriction of Jewish immigrants to Palestine, non-acceptance of a partitioned state (as suggested by the United Nations) amongst Arab leaders, and the cost of keeping 100,000 troops in Palestine the British Government referred the matter to the United Nations. In September 1947, the British decided to terminate the Mandate. In November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution approving the
United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine
The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted the Plan as Re ...
. While the Jewish Agency under Ben-Gurion accepted, the Arabs rejected the plan and the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine broke out. Ben-Gurion's strategy was for the Haganah to hold on to every position with no retreat or surrender and then launch an offensive when British forces had evacuated to such an extent that there would be no more danger of British intervention. This strategy was successful, and by May 1948 Jewish forces were winning the civil war. On 14 May 1948, a few hours before the British Mandate officially terminated, Ben-Gurion declared Israeli independence in a ceremony in Tel Aviv. A few hours later, the State of Israel officially came into being when the British Mandate terminated on 15 May. The
1948 Arab–Israeli War
The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...
began immediately afterwards as numerous Arab nations then invaded Israel.
Attitude towards conquering the West Bank
After the ten-day campaign during the
1948 war
The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. It is known in Israel as the War of Independence ( he, מלחמת העצמאות, ''Milkhemet Ha'Atzma'ut'') and ...
, the Israelis were militarily superior to their enemies and the Cabinet subsequently considered where and when to attack next.Benny Morris (2008), pp. 315–316. On 24 September, an incursion made by the Palestinian irregulars in the Latrun sector (killing 23 Israeli soldiers) precipitated the debate. On 26 September, Ben-Gurion put his argument to the Cabinet to attack Latrun again and conquer the whole or a large part of West Bank.Benny Morris (2008), pp. 317.Benny Morris (2008), p. 318. The motion was rejected by a vote of seven to five after discussions. Ben-Gurion qualified the cabinet's decision as ("a source of lament for generations") considering Israel may have lost forever the Old City of Jerusalem.Benny Morris (2008), pp. 315.
There is a controversy around these events. According to Uri Bar-Joseph, Ben-Gurion placed a plan that called for a limited action aimed at the conquest of Latrun, and not for an all-out offensive. According to David Tal, in the cabinet meeting, Ben-Gurion reacted to what he had been just told by a delegation from Jerusalem. He points out that this view that Ben-Gurion had planned to conquer the West Bank is unsubstantiated in both Ben-Gurion's diary and in the Cabinet protocol.
The topic came back at the end of the 1948 war, when General Yigal Allon also proposed the conquest of the West Bank up to the Jordan River as the natural, defensible border of the state. This time, Ben-Gurion refused although he was aware that the IDF was militarily strong enough to carry out the conquest. He feared the reaction of Western powers and wanted to maintain good relations with the United States and not to provoke the British. Moreover, in his opinion the results of the war were already satisfactory and Israeli leaders had to focus on the building of a nation.
According to Benny Morris, "Ben-Gurion got cold feet during the war. (...). If ehad carried out a large expulsion and cleansed the whole country -the whole Land of Israel, as far as the Jordan River. It may yet turn out that this was his fatal mistake. If he had carried out a full expulsion rather than a partial one- he would have stabilized the State of Israel for generations."
Religious parties and status quo
In order to prevent the coalescence of the religious right, the Histadrut agreed to a vague "status quo" agreement with
Mizrahi
''Mizrachi'' or ''Mizrahi'' ( he, מזרחי) has two meanings.
In the literal Hebrew meaning ''Eastern'', it may refer to:
*Mizrahi Jews, Jews from the Middle East
* Mizrahi (surname), a Sephardic surname, given to Jews who got to the Iberian P ...
in 1935.
Ben-Gurion was aware that world Jewry could and would only feel comfortable to throw their support behind the nascent state, if it was shrouded with religious mystique. That would include an orthodox tacit acquiescence to the entity. Therefore, in September 1947 Ben-Gurion decided to reach a formal status quo agreement with the Orthodox
Agudat Yisrael
Agudat Yisrael ( he, אֲגוּדָּת יִשְׂרָאֵל, lit., ''Union of Israel'', also transliterated ''Agudath Israel'', or, in Yiddish, ''Agudas Yisroel'') is a Haredi Jewish political party in Israel. It began as a political party re ...
party. He sent a letter to Agudat Yisrael stating that while being committed to establishing a non-
theocratic
Theocracy is a form of government in which one or more deities are recognized as supreme ruling authorities, giving divine guidance to human intermediaries who manage the government's daily affairs.
Etymology
The word theocracy originates fr ...
state with freedom of religion, he promised that the
Shabbat
Shabbat (, , or ; he, שַׁבָּת, Šabbāṯ, , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the week—i.e., Saturday. On this day, religious Jews remember the biblical storie ...
would be Israel's official day of rest, that in state-provided kitchens there would be access to kosher food, that every effort would be made to provide a single jurisdiction for Jewish family affairs, and that each sector would be granted autonomy in the sphere of education, provided minimum standards regarding the curriculum be observed. To a large extent this agreement provided the framework for religious affairs in Israel till the present day, and is often used as a benchmark regarding the arrangement of religious affairs in Israel.
Religious belief
Ben-Gurion described himself as an irreligious person who developed
atheism
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...
in his youth and who demonstrated no great sympathy for the elements of traditional Judaism, though he quoted the Bible extensively in his speeches and writings. Modern Orthodox philosopher
Yeshayahu Leibowitz
Yeshayahu Leibowitz ( he, ישעיהו ליבוביץ; 29 January 1903 – 18 August 1994) was an Israeli Orthodox Jewish public intellectual and polymath. He was a professor of biochemistry, organic chemistry, and neurophysiology at the Hebrew ...
considered Ben-Gurion "to have hated Judaism more than any other man he had met". He was proud of the fact that he had only set foot in a synagogue once in Israel, worked on
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur (; he, יוֹם כִּפּוּר, , , ) is the holiest day in Judaism and Samaritanism. It occurs annually on the 10th of Tishrei, the first month of the Hebrew calendar. Primarily centered on atonement and repentance, the day's ...
and ate pork. In later time, Ben-Gurion refused to define himself as "secular", and he regarded himself a believer in God. In a 1970 interview, he described himself as a
pantheist
Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has e ...
, and stated that "I don't know if there's an afterlife. I think there is." During an interview with the leftist weekly ''Hotam'' two years before his death, he revealed, "I too have a deep faith in the Almighty. I believe in one God, the omnipotent Creator. My consciousness is aware of the existence of material and spirit ... utI cannot understand how order reigns in nature, in the world and universeunless there exists a superior force. This supreme Creator is beyond my comprehension . . . but it directs everything."
In a letter to the writer Eliezer Steinman, he wrote "Today, more than ever, the 'religious' tend to relegate Judaism to observing dietary laws and preserving the Sabbath. This is considered religious reform. I prefer the Fifteenth Psalm, lovely are the psalms of Israel. The Shulchan Aruch is a product of our nation's life in the Exile. It was produced in the Exile, in conditions of Exile. A nation in the process of fulfilling its every task, physically and spiritually ... must compose a 'New Shulchan'--and our nation's intellectuals are required, in my opinion, to fulfill their responsibility in this."
Military leadership
During the
1948 Arab–Israeli War
The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...
Ben-Gurion oversaw the nascent state's military operations. During the first weeks of Israel's independence, he ordered all militias to be replaced by one national army, the
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the Israel, State of Israel. It consists of three servic ...
(IDF). To that end, Ben-Gurion used a firm hand during the Altalena Affair, a ship carrying arms purchased by the
Irgun
Irgun • Etzel
, image = Irgun.svg , image_size = 200px
, caption = Irgun emblem. The map shows both Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan, which the Irgun claimed in its entirety for a future Jewish state. The acronym "Etzel" i ...
led by Menachem Begin. He insisted that all weapons be handed over to the IDF. When fighting broke out on the Tel Aviv beach he ordered it be taken by force and to shell the ship. Sixteen Irgun fighters and three IDF soldiers were killed in this battle. Following the policy of a unified military force, he also ordered that the Palmach headquarters be disbanded and its units be integrated with the rest of the IDF, to the chagrin of many of its members. By absorbing the Irgun force into Israel's IDF, the Israelis eliminated competition and the central government controlled all military forces within the country. His attempts to reduce the number of Mapam members in the senior ranks led to the "Generals' Revolt" in June 1948.
As head of the
Jewish Agency
The Jewish Agency for Israel ( he, הסוכנות היהודית לארץ ישראל, translit=HaSochnut HaYehudit L'Eretz Yisra'el) formerly known as The Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. ...
from 1935, Ben-Gurion was de facto leader of the Jewish population even before the state was declared. In this position, Ben-Gurion played a major role in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. When the IDF archives and others were opened in the late 1980s, scholars started to reconsider the events and the role of Ben-Gurion.
Founding of Israel
On 14 May 1948, on the last day of the British Mandate, Ben-Gurion declared the independence of the State of Israel. In the Israeli declaration of independence, he stated that the new nation would "uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of religion, race".
In his War Diaries in February 1948, Ben-Gurion wrote: "The war shall give us the land. The concepts of 'ours' and 'not ours' are peace concepts only, and they lose their meaning during war."Mêrôn Benveniśtî, ''Sacred landscape: the buried history of the Holy Land since 1948'', p. 120 Also later he confirmed this by stating that, "In the Negev we shall not buy the land. We shall conquer it. You forget that we are at war." The Arabs, meanwhile, also vied with Israel over the control of territory by means of war, while the Jordanian ''
Arab Legion
The Arab Legion () was the police force, then regular army of the Emirate of Transjordan, a British protectorate, in the early part of the 20th century, and then of independent Jordan, with a final Arabization of its command taking place in 195 ...
'' had decided to concentrate its forces in
Bethlehem
Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital o ...
and in
Hebron
Hebron ( ar, الخليل or ; he, חֶבְרוֹן ) is a Palestinian. city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judaean Mountains, it lies above sea level. The second-largest city in the West Bank (after Eas ...
in order to save that district for its Arab inhabitants, and to prevent territorial gains for Israel. Israeli historian Benny Morris has written of the massacres of Palestinian Arabs in 1948, and has stated that Ben-Gurion "covered up for the officers who did the massacres."
After leading Israel during the
1948 Arab–Israeli War
The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...
, Ben-Gurion was elected
Prime Minister of Israel
The prime minister of Israel ( he, רֹאשׁ הַמֶּמְשָׁלָה, Rosh HaMemshala, Head of the Government, Hebrew acronym: he2, רה״מ; ar, رئيس الحكومة, ''Ra'īs al-Ḥukūma'') is the head of government and chief exec ...
when his Mapai (Labour) party won the largest number of
Knesset
The Knesset ( he, הַכְּנֶסֶת ; "gathering" or "assembly") is the unicameral legislature of Israel. As the supreme state body, the Knesset is sovereign and thus has complete control of the entirety of the Israeli government (with ...
seats in the first national election, held on 14 February 1949. He remained in that post until 1963, except for a period of nearly two years between 1954 and 1955. As prime minister, he oversaw the establishment of the state's institutions. He presided over various national projects aimed at the rapid development of the country and its population:
Operation Magic Carpet
Operation Magic Carpet was the post-World War II operation by the War Shipping Administration to repatriate over eight million American military personnel from the European, Pacific, and Asian theaters. Hundreds of Liberty ships, Victory ships ...
, the airlift of Jews from Arab countries, the construction of the
National Water Carrier
National Water Carrier of Israel
The National Water Carrier of Israel ( he, המוביל הארצי, ''HaMovil HaArtzi'') is the largest water project in Israel, completed in 1964. Its main purpose is to transfer water from the Sea of Galilee ...
, rural development projects and the establishment of new towns and cities. In particular, he called for pioneering settlement in outlying areas, especially in the
Negev
The Negev or Negeb (; he, הַנֶּגֶב, hanNegév; ar, ٱلنَّقَب, an-Naqab) is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southe ...
. Ben-Gurion saw the struggle to make the Negev desert bloom as an area where the Jewish people could make a major contribution to humanity as a whole. He believed that the sparsely populated and barren Negev desert offered a great opportunity for the Jews to settle in Palestine with minimal obstruction of the Arab population, and set a personal example by settling in kibbutz
Sde Boker
Sde Boker ( he, שְׂדֵה בּוֹקֵר, lit. ''Herding Field'') is a kibbutz in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Best known as the retirement home of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, it falls under the jurisdiction of Ram ...
at the center of the Negev.
During this period, Palestinian fedayeen repeatedly infiltrated into Israel from Arab territory. In 1953, after a handful of unsuccessful retaliatory actions, Ben-Gurion charged Ariel Sharon, then security chief of the northern region, with setting up a new commando unit designed to respond to fedayeen infiltrations. Ben-Gurion told Sharon, "The Palestinians must learn that they will pay a high price for Israeli lives." Sharon formed
Unit 101
Commando Unit 101 ( he, יחידה 101) was a special forces unit of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), founded and commanded by Ariel Sharon on orders from Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in August 1953. They were armed with non-standard weapons ...
, a small commando unit answerable directly to the IDF General Staff tasked with retaliating for fedayeen raids. During its five months of existence, the unit launched repeated raids against military targets and villages used as bases by the fedayeen. These attacks became known as the
reprisal operations
Reprisal operations ( he, פעולות התגמול, ') were raids carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in the 1950s and 1960s in response to frequent fedayeen attacks during which armed Arab militants infiltrated Israel from Syria, E ...
.
In 1953, Ben-Gurion announced his intention to withdraw from government and was replaced by
Moshe Sharett
Moshe Sharett ( he, משה שרת, born Moshe Chertok (Hebrew: ) 15 October 1894 – 7 July 1965) was a Russian-born Israeli politician who served as Israel's second prime minister from 1954 to 1955. A member of Mapai, Sharett's term was b ...
, who was elected the second Prime Minister of Israel in January 1954. However, Ben-Gurion temporarily served as acting prime minister when Sharett visited the United States in 1955. During Ben-Gurion's tenure as acting prime minister, the IDF carried out Operation Olive Leaves, a successful attack on fortified Syrian emplacements near the northeastern shores of the
Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee ( he, יָם כִּנֶּרֶת, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ar, بحيرة طبريا), also called Lake Tiberias, Kinneret or Kinnereth, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest ...
. The operation was a response to Syrian attacks on Israeli fishermen. Ben-Gurion had ordered the operation without consulting the Israeli cabinet and seeking a vote on the matter, and Sharett would later bitterly complain that Ben-Gurion had exceeded his authority.
Ben-Gurion returned to government in 1955. He assumed the post of defence minister and was soon re-elected prime minister. When he returned to government, Israeli forces began responding more aggressively to Egyptian-sponsored Palestinian guerrilla attacks from Gaza, which was under Egyptian rule. Egypt's President
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, . (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian politician who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and introduced far-re ...
signed the Egyptian-Czech arms deal and purchased a large amount of modern arms. The Israelis responded by arming themselves with help from France. Nasser blocked the passage of Israeli ships through the Straits of Tiran and the Suez Canal. In July 1956, the United States and Britain withdrew their offer to fund the Aswan High Dam project on the Nile and a week later, Nasser ordered the nationalisation of the French and British-controlled Suez Canal. In late 1956, the bellicosity of Arab statements prompted Israel to remove the threat of the concentrated Egyptian forces in the Sinai, and Israel invaded the Egyptian Sinai peninsula. Other Israeli aims were elimination of the fedayeen incursions into Israel that made life unbearable for its southern population, and opening the blockaded Straits of Tiran for Israeli ships. Israel occupied much of the peninsula within a few days. As agreed beforehand, within a couple of days, Britain and France invaded too, aiming at regaining Western control of the
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
and removing the Egyptian president Nasser. The United States pressure forced the British and French to back down and Israel to withdraw from Sinai in return for free Israeli navigation through the Red Sea. The United Nations responded by establishing its first peacekeeping force, (
UNEF UNEF may refer to:
* United Nations Emergency Force, a UN force deployed in the Middle East in 1956
* UNEF, a designation for Extra-Fine thread series of Standard Unified Screw Threads (ANSI B1.1)
* Union Nationale des Étudiants de France (Natio ...
). It was stationed between Egypt and Israel and for the next decade it maintained peace and stopped the fedayeen incursions into Israel.
In 1959, Ben-Gurion learned from West German officials of reports that the notorious Nazi war criminal,
Mossad, to capture the international fugitive alive for trial in Israel. In 1960, the mission was accomplished and Eichmann was tried and convicted in an internationally publicised trial for various offences including crimes against humanity, and was subsequently executed in 1962.
Ben-Gurion is said to have been "nearly obsessed" with Israel's obtaining
nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
s, feeling that a nuclear arsenal was the only way to counter the Arabs' superiority in numbers, space, and financial resources, and that it was the only sure guarantee of Israel's survival and the prevention of another
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
. During his final months as premier Ben-Gurion was engaged in a, now declassified, diplomatic standoff with the United States.
Ben-Gurion stepped down as prime minister on 16 June 1963, According to historian Yechiam Weitz, when he unexpectedly resigned:
He was asked to reconsider his decision by the cabinet. The country, however, seemed to have anticipated his move and, unlike the response to his resignation in 1953, no serious efforts were made to dissuade him from resigning.... is reasons includehis political isolation, suspicion of colleagues and rivals, apparent inability to interact with the full spectrum of reality, and belief that his life's work was disintegrating. His resignation was not an act of farewell but another act of his personal struggle and possibly an indication of his mental state.
Ben-Gurion chose
Levi Eshkol
Levi Eshkol ( he, לֵוִי אֶשְׁכּוֹל ; 25 October 1895 – 26 February 1969), born Levi Yitzhak Shkolnik ( he, לוי יצחק שקולניק, links=no), was an Israeli statesman who served as the third Prime Minister of Israe ...
as his successor. A year later a bitter rivalry developed between the two on the issue of the Lavon Affair, a failed 1954 Israeli covert operation in Egypt. Ben-Gurion had insisted that the operation be properly investigated, while Eshkol refused. After failing to unseat Eshkol as Mapai party leader in the 1965 Mapai leadership election, Ben-Gurion subsequently broke with Mapai in June 1965 and formed a new party, Rafi, while Mapai merged with
Ahdut HaAvoda
Ahdut HaAvoda ( he, אַחְדוּת הַעֲבוֹדָה, lit. ''Labour Unity'') was the name used by a series of political parties. Ahdut HaAvoda in its first incarnation was led by David Ben-Gurion. It was first established during the perio ...
to form
Alignment
Alignment may refer to:
Archaeology
* Alignment (archaeology), a co-linear arrangement of features or structures with external landmarks
* Stone alignment, a linear arrangement of upright, parallel megalithic standing stones
Biology
* Structu ...
, with Eshkol as its head. Alignment defeated Rafi in the November 1965
election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...
, establishing Eshkol as the country's leader.
Later political career
In May 1967,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
began massing forces in the
Sinai Peninsula
The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai (now usually ) (, , cop, Ⲥⲓⲛⲁ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a l ...
after expelling UN peacekeepers and closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. This, together with the actions of other Arab states, caused Israel to begin preparing for war. The situation lasted until the outbreak of the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
on 5 June. In Jerusalem, there were calls for a
national unity government
A national unity government, government of national unity (GNU), or national union government is a broad coalition government consisting of all parties (or all major parties) in the legislature, usually formed during a time of war or other nat ...
or an emergency government. During this period, Ben-Gurion met with his old rival
Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin ( ''Menaḥem Begin'' (); pl, Menachem Begin (Polish documents, 1931–1937); ''Menakhem Volfovich Begin''; 16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. B ...
in Sde Boker. Begin asked Ben-Gurion to join Eshkol's national unity government. Although Eshkol's
Mapai
Mapai ( he, מַפָּא"י, an acronym for , ''Mifleget Poalei Eretz Yisrael'', lit. "Workers' Party of the Land of Israel") was a democratic socialist political party in Israel, and was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger in ...
party initially opposed the widening of its government, it eventually changed its mind. On 23 May, IDF Chief of Staff
Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin (; he, יִצְחָק רַבִּין, ; 1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77, and from 1992 until h ...
met with Ben-Gurion to ask for reassurance. Ben-Gurion, however, accused Rabin of putting Israel in mortal danger by mobilising the reserves and openly preparing for war with an Arab coalition. Ben-Gurion told Rabin that at the very least, he should have obtained the support of a foreign power, as he had done during the Suez Crisis. Rabin was shaken by the meeting and took to bed for 36 hours.
After the Israeli government decided to go to war, planning a preemptive strike to destroy the Egyptian Air Force followed by a ground offensive, Defense Minister
Moshe Dayan
Moshe Dayan ( he, משה דיין; 20 May 1915 – 16 October 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (1953–1958) du ...
told Ben-Gurion of the impending attack on the night of 4–5 June. Ben-Gurion subsequently wrote in his diary that he was troubled by Israel's impending offensive. On 5 June, the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
began with
Operation Focus
Operation Focus ( he, מבצע מוקד, ''Mivtza Moked'') was the opening airstrike by Israel at the start of the Six-Day War in 1967. It is sometimes referred to as the "Sinai Air Strike". At 07:45 on 5 June 1967, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) u ...
, an Israeli air attack that decimated the Egyptian air force. Israel then captured the Sinai Peninsula and
Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
from Egypt, the
West Bank
The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
Golan Heights
The Golan Heights ( ar, هَضْبَةُ الْجَوْلَانِ, Haḍbatu l-Jawlān or ; he, רמת הגולן, ), or simply the Golan, is a region in the Levant spanning about . The region defined as the Golan Heights differs between di ...
from Syria in a series of campaigns. Following the war, Ben-Gurion was in favour of returning all the captured territories apart from East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and
Mount Hebron
The Hebron Hills, also known as Mount Hebron ( ar, جبل الخليل, translit=Jabal al-Khalīl, he, הר חברון, translit=Har Hevron), are a mountain ridge, geographic region, and geologic formation, comprising the southern part of the J ...
as part of a peace agreement.
On 11 June, Ben-Gurion met with a small group of supporters in his home. During the meeting, Defense Minister
Moshe Dayan
Moshe Dayan ( he, משה דיין; 20 May 1915 – 16 October 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (1953–1958) du ...
proposed autonomy for the West Bank, the transfer of Gazan refugees to Jordan, and a united Jerusalem serving as Israel's capital. Ben-Gurion agreed with him, but foresaw problems in transferring Palestinian refugees from Gaza to Jordan, and recommended that Israel insist on direct talks with Egypt, favouring withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for peace and free navigation through the Straits of Tiran. The following day, he met with Jerusalem mayor
Teddy Kollek
Theodor "Teddy" Kollek ( he, טדי קולק; 27 May 1911 – 2 January 2007) was an Israeli politician who served as the mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 to 1993, and founder of the Jerusalem Foundation. Kollek was re-elected five times, in 1969, 197 ...
in his Knesset office. Despite occupying a lower executive position, Ben-Gurion treated Kollek like a subordinate.Shalom, Zaki: ''Ben-Gurion's political struggles, 1963–1967''
Following the Six-Day War, Ben-Gurion criticised what he saw as the government's apathy towards the construction and development of the city. To ensure that a united Jerusalem remained in Israeli hands, he advocated a massive Jewish settlement program for the Old City and the hills surrounding the city, as well as the establishment of large industries in the Jerusalem area to attract Jewish migrants. He argued that no Arabs would have to be evicted in the process. Ben-Gurion also urged extensive Jewish settlement in Hebron.
In 1968, when Rafi merged with Mapai to form the
Alignment
Alignment may refer to:
Archaeology
* Alignment (archaeology), a co-linear arrangement of features or structures with external landmarks
* Stone alignment, a linear arrangement of upright, parallel megalithic standing stones
Biology
* Structu ...
, Ben-Gurion refused to reconcile with his old party. He favoured electoral reforms in which a constituency-based system would replace what he saw as a chaotic proportional representation method. He formed another new party, the National List, which won four seats in the 1969 election.
Final years and death
Ben-Gurion retired from politics in 1970 and spent his last years living in a modest home on the kibbutz, working on an 11-volume history of Israel's early years. In 1971, he visited Israeli positions along the
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
during the
War of Attrition
The War of Attrition ( ar, حرب الاستنزاف, Ḥarb al-Istinzāf; he, מלחמת ההתשה, Milhemet haHatashah) involved fighting between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and their allies from ...
.
On 18 November 1973, shortly after the
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egy ...
Sheba Medical Center
Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel HaShomer ( he, המרכז הרפואי ע"ש חיים שיבא – תל השומר), also Tel HaShomer Hospital, is the largest hospital in Israel, located in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan at Tel HaShome ...
in
Tel HaShomer
Tel HaShomer ( he, תֵּל הַשּׁוֹמֵר, ''lit.'' Hill of the Guardsman) or Kiryat Krinitzi is a neighborhood in Ramat Gan, Israel. It is bordered to the north by Kiryat Ono, to the east by Yehud, and to the south by Or Yehuda. A major ...
, Ramat Gan. His condition began deteriorating on 23 November and he died a few weeks later. His body lay in state in the Knesset compound before being flown by helicopter to Sde Boker. Sirens sounded across the country to mark his death. He was buried alongside his wife Paula at
Midreshet Ben-Gurion
Midreshet Ben-Gurion ( he, מִדְרֶשֶׁת בֶּן גּוּרְיוֹן), also known as Midreshet Sde Boker, is an educational center and boarding school in southern Israel. Located in the Negev next to kibbutz Sde Boker, it falls under the ...
.
Awards
* In 1949, Ben-Gurion was awarded the
Solomon Bublick Award The Solomon Bublick Award (Solomon Bublick Public Service Award or Solomon Bublick Prize) is an award made by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to a person who has made an important contribution to the advancement and development of the State of I ...
of the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...
, in recognition of his contributions to the State of Israel.
* In both 1951 and 1971, he was awarded the
Bialik Prize
The Bialik Prize is an annual literary award given by the municipality of Tel Aviv, Israel, for significant accomplishments in Hebrew literature. The prize is named in memory of Israel's national poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik
Hayim Nahman Bialik ...
for Jewish thought.
Commemoration
* Israel's largest airport,
Ben Gurion International Airport
Ben Gurion International Airport, ; ar, مطار بن غوريون الدولي , commonly known by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the main international airport of Israel. Situated on the northern outskirts of the city of Lod, it is th ...
, is named in his honour.
* One of Israel's major universities,
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) ( he, אוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב, ''Universitat Ben-Guriyon baNegev'') is a public research university in Beersheba, Israel. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has five campuses: the ...
, located in Beersheva, is named after him.
* Numerous streets, as well as schools, throughout Israel have been named after him.
* An Israeli modification of the British Centurion Tank was named after Ben-Gurion
* Ben-Gurion's Hut in Kibbutz
Sde Boker
Sde Boker ( he, שְׂדֵה בּוֹקֵר, lit. ''Herding Field'') is a kibbutz in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Best known as the retirement home of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, it falls under the jurisdiction of Ram ...
which is now a visitors' center.
* A desert research center,
Midreshet Ben-Gurion
Midreshet Ben-Gurion ( he, מִדְרֶשֶׁת בֶּן גּוּרְיוֹן), also known as Midreshet Sde Boker, is an educational center and boarding school in southern Israel. Located in the Negev next to kibbutz Sde Boker, it falls under the ...
, near his "hut" in Kibbutz
Sde Boker
Sde Boker ( he, שְׂדֵה בּוֹקֵר, lit. ''Herding Field'') is a kibbutz in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Best known as the retirement home of Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, it falls under the jurisdiction of Ram ...
has been named in his honour. Ben-Gurion's grave is in the research center.
* An English Heritage blue plaque, unveiled in 1986, marks where Ben-Gurion lived in London at 75 Warrington Crescent,
Maida Vale
Maida Vale ( ) is an affluent residential district consisting of the northern part of Paddington in West London, west of St John's Wood and south of Kilburn. It is also the name of its main road, on the continuous Edgware Road. Maida Vale is ...
, W9.
* In the
7th arrondissement of Paris
The 7th arrondissement of Paris (''VIIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''le septième''.
The arrondissement, called Palais-Bourbon in a r ...
is named after him.
* His portrait appears on both the 500 lirot and the 50 (old) sheqalim notes issued by the Bank of Israel.
File:Grave of David Ben Gurion and Paula Munweis in Sde Boker.jpg, Graves of Paula and David Ben-Gurion,
Midreshet Ben-Gurion
Midreshet Ben-Gurion ( he, מִדְרֶשֶׁת בֶּן גּוּרְיוֹן), also known as Midreshet Sde Boker, is an educational center and boarding school in southern Israel. Located in the Negev next to kibbutz Sde Boker, it falls under the ...
File:BGsculptureS.jpg, Sculpture of David Ben-Gurion at Ben Gurion Airport, named in his honour
File:Esplanade Ben Gourion.JPG, Esplanade Ben Gourion, Paris, near the Seine, in front of the Musée du Quai Branly
File:David Ben Gurion birth place.jpg, David Ben-Gurion Square—site of the house where Ben-Gurion was born, Płońsk, Wspólna Street.
File:Płońsk - tzw. Bengurionówka, Plac 15 Sierpnia 21, 21A (ziel).JPG, House at town square in Płońsk, Poland, where David Ben-Gurion grew up
File:DAVID BEN-GURION 1886-1973 First Prime-Minister of Israel lived here.jpg, English Heritage blue plaque where Ben-Gurion lived in London
See also
*
List of Bialik Prize recipients
The Bialik Prize is an annual literary award given by the municipality of Tel Aviv, Israel, for significant accomplishments in Hebrew literature. The prize is named in memory of Israel's national poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik
Hayim Nahman Biali ...
*
Jewish Agency for Israel
The Jewish Agency for Israel ( he, הסוכנות היהודית לארץ ישראל, translit=HaSochnut HaYehudit L'Eretz Yisra'el) formerly known as The Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. ...
*
Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany
The Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany ( German: ''Luxemburger Abkommen'' "Luxembourg Agreement" or ''Wiedergutmachungsabkommen'' "''Wiedergutmachung'' Agreement", Hebrew: ''הסכם השילומים'' ''Hesk ...
References
Further reading
* Aronson, Shlomo. "Leadership, preventive war and territorial expansion: David Ben-Gurion and Levi Eshkol." ''Israel Affairs'' 18.4 (2012): 526–545.
* Aronson, Shlomo. "David Ben-Gurion and the British Constitutional Model." ''Israel Studies'' 3.2 (1998): 193–214 online * Aronson, Shlomo. "David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol and the Struggle over Dimona: A Prologue to the Six-Day War and its (Un) Anticipated Results." ''Israel Affairs'' 15.2 (2009): 114–134.
* .
* Cohen, Mitchell. "Zion and State: Nation, Class and the Shaping of Modern Israel" (Columbia University Press, 1987)
* Eldar, Eran. "David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir: from partnership to enmity." ''Israel Affairs'' 26.2 (2020): 174–182 online * Friling, Tuvia, and Ora Cummings. ''Arrows in the Dark: David Ben-Gurion, the Yishuv Leadership, and Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust'' (2 vol. University of Wisconsin Press, 2005).
* Gal, Allon. ''David Ben-Gurion and the American Alignment for a Jewish State'' (Indiana UP, 1991).
* Getzoff, Joseph F. "Zionist frontiers: David Ben-Gurion, labor Zionism, and transnational circulations of settler development." ''Settler Colonial Studies'' 10.1 (2020): 74–93.
* Kedar, Nir. ''David Ben-Gurion and the Foundation of Israeli Democracy'' (Indiana UP, 2021).
* Oren, Michael B. "Ambivalent Adversaries: David Ben-Gurion and Israel vs. the United Nations and Dag Hammarskjold, 1956–57." ''Journal of Contemporary History'' 27.1 (1992): 89–127.
* Pappe, Ilan. "Moshe Sharett, David Ben‐Gurion and the 'Palestinian option,' 1948–1956." ''Studies in Zionism'' 7.1 (1986): 77–96.
* Peres, Shimon. ''Ben-Gurion'' (Schocken Pub., 2011) .
* Reynold, Nick. ''The War of the Zionist Giants: David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann'' (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).
* Rosenberg-Friedman, Lilach. "David Ben-Gurion and the ‘Demographic Threat’: His Dualistic Approach to Natalism, 1936–63." ''Middle Eastern Studies'' 51.5 (2015): 742–766.
* Sachar, Howard Morley. ''A history of Israel: From the rise of Zionism to our time'' (Knopf, 2007).
* St. John, Robert William. ''Builder of Israel; the story of Ben-Gurion'', (Doubleday, 1961 online * Segev, Tom. ''A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion'' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019) Finalist for 2019 National Jewish Book Award .
** Shatz, Adam, "We Are Conquerors" (review of
Tom Segev
Tom Segev ( he, תום שגב; born March 1, 1945) is an Israeli historian, author and journalist. He is associated with Israel's New Historians, a group challenging many of the country's traditional narratives.
Biography
Segev was born in Jeru ...
, ''A State at Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion'', Head of Zeus, 2019, 804 pp., ), ''
London Review of Books
The ''London Review of Books'' (''LRB'') is a British literary magazine published twice monthly that features articles and essays on fiction and non-fiction subjects, which are usually structured as book reviews.
History
The ''London Review of ...
'', vol. 41, no. 20 (24 October 2019), pp. 37–38, 40–42. "Segev's biography... shows how central exclusionary nationalism, war and racism were to Ben-Gurion's vision of the Jewish homeland in Palestine, and how contemptuous he was not only of the Arabs but of Jewish life outside Zion. Liberal Jews may look at the state that Ben-Gurion built, and ask if the cost has been worth it." (p. 42 of Shatz's review.)
*
*
*
* Shapira, Anita. ''Ben-Gurion'' (Yale UP, 2014).
* Shiff, Ofer. "Abba Hillel Silver and David Ben‐Gurion: A Diaspora Leader Challenges the Revered Status of the ‘Founding Father’" ''Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism'' 10.3 (2010): 391–412.
* Weitz, Yechiam. "The Founding Father and the General: David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan." ''Middle Eastern Studies'' 47.6 (2011): 845–861.
* Witzthum, David. "David Ben-Gurion and Konrad Adenauer: Building a Bridge across the Abyss." ''Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs'' 13.2 (2019): 223–237.
* Zweig, Ronald W. ''David Ben-Gurion: Politics and Leadership in Israel'' (Routledge, 2013).
Historiography
* Keren, Michael. "Biography and Historiography: The Case of David Ben-Gurion." ''Biography'' (2000): 332–351 online