David Ben-Gurion
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| David Ben-Gurion
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| In office 2 November 1955 – 21 June 1963 |
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| Preceded by | Moshe Sharett |
| Succeeded by | Levi Eshkol |
| In office 14 May 1948 – 7 December 1953 |
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| Preceded by | None |
| Succeeded by | Moshe Sharett |
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| Born | October 16, 1886 Płońsk, Poland (Russian Empire) |
| Died | December 1, 1973 (aged 87) Israel |
| Political party | Mapai, Rafi, National List |
David Ben-Gurion (Hebrew: דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן, born David Grün 16 October 1886 - 1 December 1973) was the first Prime Minister of Israel. Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, culminated in his instrumental role in the founding of the state of Israel. After leading Israel to victory in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Ben-Gurion helped build the state institutions and oversaw the absorption of vast numbers of Jews from all over the world. Upon retiring from political life in 1970, he moved to Sde Boker, where he lived until his death. Posthumously, Ben-Gurion was named one of Time Magazine 's 100 Most Important People of the Century.
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[edit] Early life
Ben-Gurion was born in Płońsk, Congress Poland which was then part of the Russian Empire. His father, Avigdor Grün was a lawyer and a leader in the Hovevei Zion movement. His mother, Scheindel, passed away when he was 11 years old.
Ben-Gurion grew up to be an ardent Zionist. As a student at the University of Warsaw, he joined the Marxist Paole Zion movement in 1904. He was arrested twice during the Russian Revolution of 1905. He immigrated to Palestine in 1906, shocked by the pogroms and horrific anti-Semitism of life in Eastern Europe, and became a major leader of Paole Zion with Yitzhak Ben-Zvi.
In Palestine, he first worked in agriculture, picking oranges. In 1902 he volunteered with HaShomer, a force of volunteers who helped guard isolated Jewish agricultural communities. In 1912 he moved to Turkey to study law at Istanbul University together with Ben-Zvi and adopted the Hebrew name Ben-Gurion, after Yosef ben Gurion (Joseph son of Gorion), a general of the Jews during the First Jewish-Roman War. He also worked as a journalist. In 1915, Ben-Gurion and Ben-Zvi were expelled from Palestine, then under Ottoman rule, for their political activities.
Settling in America (New York City) in 1915, he met Russian-born Paula Munweis. They were married in 1917, and had three children. He joined the British Army in 1918 as part of the 38th Battalion of the Jewish Legion (following the Balfour Declaration in November 1917). He and his family returned to Palestine after World War I following its capture by the British from the Ottoman Empire.
[edit] Zionist leadership
After the death of theorist Ber Borochov, the left-wing and right-wing of Paole Zion split in 1919 with Ben-Gurion and his friend Berl Katznelson leading the right faction of the Labor Zionist movement. In 1920 he assisted in the formation and subsequently became general secretary of the Histadrut, the Zionist Labor Federation in Palestine. In 1930, Paole Zion Right and Labour Unity joined forces to create Mapai, the right-wing Zionist labor party, under Ben-Gurion's leadership. The left-wing of Labour Zionism was represented by Mapam. Labor Zionism became the dominant tendency in the World Zionist Organization and in 1935 Ben Gurion became chairman of the executive committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, a role he kept until the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
According to Zeev Sternhell[1] Ben-Gurion's 'intentions to which he adhered throughout the rest of his life' were well described by a declaration he made in December 1922:
[...] Our central problem is immigration ... and not adapting our lives to this or that doctrine. [...] We are conquerors of the land facing an iron wall, and we have to break through it. [...] How can we run our Zionist movement in such a way that [... we] will be able to carry out the conquest of the land by the Jewish worker, and which will find the resources to organise the massive immigration and settlement of workers through their own capabilities? The creation of a new Zionist movement, a Zionist movement of workers, is the first prerequisite for the fulfillment of Zionism. [...] Without [such] a new Zionist movement that is entirely at our disposal, there is no future or hope for our activities
According to Sternhell 'This concise, concentrated, programmatic and important speech, contained not a single word about equality, justice, universal values, or the creation of an alternative society. Only one objective was mentioned and all the energy, strength and capabilities of the young movement were directed toward achieving it.' Ben-Gurion was committed almost exclusively to building a Jewish state.
During the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, Ben-Gurion instigated a policy of restraint ("Havlagah") in which the Haganah and other Jewish groups did not retaliate for Arab attacks against Jewish civillians, concentrating only on self-defence. In 1937, the Peel Commission recommended partitioning Palestine into Jewish and Arab areas and Ben-Gurion supported this policy. This led to conflict with Jabotinsky who opposed partition and as a result Jabotinsky's supporters split with the Haganah and abandoned Havlagah.
Ben-Gurion had a realistic view of the strong attachment of Arab Palestinians to the Palestinian soil. In 1938 he said: 'In our political argument abroad we minimize Arab opposition to us. But let us not ignore the truth among ourselves. [...] A people which fights against the usurpation of its land will not tire so easily.'[2] According to Flapan, Ben-Gurion's assessment of Arab feelings led him to emphasize the need to build up Jewish military strength: 'I believe in our power, in our power which will grow, and if it will grow agreement will come...'.[3]
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. 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".[4] Ben-Gurion believed a peaceful solution with the Arabs had no chance and soon began preparing the Yishuv for war. According the 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.'[5]
During the Second World War, Ben-Gurion encouraged Palestine's Jews to volunteer for the British Army. 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".[6] At the same time he helped the illegal immigration of thousands of European Jewish refugees to Palestine during a period when the British placed heavy restrictions on Jewish immigration.
In 1946 Ben-Gurion agreed that the Haganah could cooperate with Menachem Begin's Irgun in fighting the British. Ben-Gurion initially agreed to Begin's plan to carry out the 1946 King David Hotel bombing, with the intent of embarrassing (rather than killing) the British military stationed there. However, when the risks of mass killing became apparent, Ben-Gurion told Begin to call the operation off; Begin refused.[7]
Illegal Jewish migration led to pressure on the British to either allow Jewish migration (as required by the League of Nations Mandate) or quit - they did the latter in 1948 on the heels of a United Nations resolution partitioning the territory between the Jews and Arabs.
In September 1947 Ben Gurion reached a status quo agreement with the Orthodox Agudath Israel party. He sent a letter to Agudath Israel promising that the Shabbat would be Israel's official day of rest, there would be no civil marriages, and the Orthodox sector would be granted autonomy in the sphere of religious education.
Ben Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. In the Israeli declaration of independence, he stressed that the new nation would "uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race, creed or gender." During the first weeks of Israel's independence, he ordered all militias to be replaced by one national army, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). To that end, Ben-Gurion gave the order to fire on the Altalena, a ship carrying arms purchased by the Irgun (also called Etzel). The destination of those arms is unclear. That command remains controversial to this day.
During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War Ben-Gurion oversaw the nascent state's military operations.
Just one day after that day, May 15, 1948, Ben Gurion orderd to sink the Altalena ship and the killings of about 940 Irgun fighters.[8]
Acording to the Wikipedia article The Altalena Affair, 37 men died in total from all sides, not 940. Apparently the Irgun fighters or many of them had disembarked before the ship was shelled. 940 would have been a total massacre--940 was about the number of fighters who left France on the ship.
[edit] Ben-Gurion and the Negev
David Ben-Gurion 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. He set a personal example by choosing to settle in a Kibbutz (Sde Boker) at the centre of the Negev and established the National Water Carrier to bring water to the area. He saw the struggle to make the desert bloom as an area where the Jewish people could make a major contribution to humanity as a whole.[9]
[edit] Ben-Gurion and the Holocaust
According to Zeev Sternhell, in his book "The Founding Myths of Israel": When it became clear that the Nazi concentration camps were more than just concentration camps, Ben-Gurion refused to change the Yishuv's priorities and tried to persuade the Yishuv that it should concern itself only with its own affairs. Some people suggested that the Jewish Agency should direct all its money and effort to rescue operations. Ben-Gurion replied that "the Jewish Agency can use this money only for the purposes for which it has been collected", and insisted that the Jewish Agency "is a general organisation of the Jewish people only where the reconstruction of Eretz Israel is concerned".[10] Ben-Gurion lobbied for the opening of Eretz Israel to rescued Jewish children.[11]
[edit] 1948 War and the Palestinian exodus
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This article or section may be inaccurate or unbalanced in favor of certain viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page. |
David Ben-Gurion played a major role in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the Palestinian exodus. The New Historians consider that he personally ordered expulsions but they don't agree whether this was part of a major plan or whether these were decisions taken in function of circumstances.
According to Simha Flapan 'the Jewish army [...] under the leadership of Ben-Gurion, planned and executed the expulsion in the wake of the UN Partition Resolution.'[12]
In a study published in 1988 and revisited in 2003,[13] Benny Morris studied the events that lead to the Palestinian exodus. Among the different causes, he suggests that Ben Gurion could have played a major role in ordering expulsions starting in July 1948. In an interview with Ha'aretz in 2003, he affirmed that Ben Gurion had probably ordered the expulsion of Palestinians from Lydda and from villages attacked during Operation Hiram in October 1948.[14]
According to Shabtai Teveth Ben-Gurion envisaged a unitary Jewish state, even at the cost of expelling Arabs. He concludes that it had always been Ben-Gurion's deepest conviction that the Arabs would only come to terms with Zionism when Jewish strength compelled respect.[15] According to Morris Shabtai Teveth and Anita Shapira 'argued that the Zionist leadership - including Ben-Gurion - had never supported the idea of transfer and had never taken the idea seriously, and that, therefore, there was no connection between the occasional propagation of the idea in the 1930s and 1940s and what happened to the Palestinians in 1947-1949'.[16].
Ilan Pappé goes further and says the exodus was planned in early 1948 by a group he calls the ‘Consultancy’ and led by Ben-Gurion.[17]
[edit] Prime Ministership
Ben-Gurion led Israel during its War of Independence. He became Prime Minister on May 14, 1948 and would remain in that post until 1963, except for a period of nearly two years between 1954 and 1955. As Premier, 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, the airlift of Jews from Arab countries, the construction of the National Water Carrier, 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.
In 1953 Ben-Gurion announced his intention to withdraw from government and settle in the Kibbutz Sde-Boker, in the Israeli Negev. He had a major role in the reprisal operations that lead to the Qibya massacre at the end of 1953. He returned to office in 1955 assuming the post of Defense Minister and later prime minister.
Returning to government, Ben-Gurion raided Gaza - still under Egyptian rule - in retaliation for the Palestinian guerrilla attacks Israel was sustaining, killing 38 Egyptian soldiers in the process. Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser, angered by this hit to Egyptian pride, started building up his arms with the help of the Soviet Union. This scared the Israelis and they started arming themselves with help from the French. Then Nasser ordered the nationalization of the Suez Canal, which was seen as very threatening action toward Israel, France, and Britain. These countries needed the trade route under international control again and so Ben-Gurion collaborated with the British and French to plan the 1956 Sinai War in which Israel stormed the Sinai Peninsula thus giving British and French forces a pretext to intervene in order to secure the Suez Canal. Intervention by the United States and the United Nations forced the British, French and Israelis to back down.
Ben-Gurion stepped down as prime minister for what he described as personal reasons in 1963, and chose Levi Eshkol as his successor. A year later a rivalry developed between the two on the issue of the Lavon Affair. Ben-Gurion broke with the party in June 1965 over Eshkol's handling of the Lavon affair and formed a new party, Rafi which won ten seats in the Knesset. After the Six-Day War, Ben-Gurion was in favour of returning all the occupied territories apart from Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and Mount Hebron.[18]
In 1968, when Rafi merged with Mapai to form the Alignment, Ben-Gurion refused to reconcile with his old party. He favoured electoral reforms in which a constituency-based system would replace the chaotic proportional representation method. He formed another new party, the National List, which won four seats in the 1969 election. Ben-Gurion retired from politics in 1970 and spent his last years living in a modest home on the kibbutz.
Ben-Gurion is buried alongside his wife Paula at a site in Midreshet Ben-Gurion in the Negev desert.
[edit] Commemoration
- Israel's largest airport, Ben-Gurion International Airport is named in his honour.
- One of Israel's major universities, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, located in Beersheva, is named after him.
- Numerous streets throughout Israel have been named after him.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Z. Sternhell, 'The founding myths of Israel', 1998, p. 3-36, ISBN 0-691-01694-1
- ^ Simha Flapan, 'Zionism and the Palestinians', 1979, ISBN 0-85664-499-4, p. 141
- ^ Simha Flapan, 'Zionism and the Palestinians', 1979, ISBN 0-85664-499-4, p. 142-144
- ^ S. Teveth, 1985, 'Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs', p. 199
- ^ S. Teveth, 1985, 'Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs', p. 200
- ^ Speech in Tel-Aviv 9/9/1939 see http://bgarchives.bgu.ac.il/moreshet/ben_gurion/horshi.html (hebrew accessed 6/5/2008)
- ^ . Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, p. 523.
- ^ .http://www.etzel.org.il/english/ac20.htm, The Altalena Affair.
- ^ http://bgarchives.bgu.ac.il/moreshet/ben_gurion/mash.html (Hebrew accessed December 2007)
- ^ Z. Sternhell, 1998, 'The Founding Myths of Israel', p. 387-8
- ^ Z. Sternhell, 1998, 'The Founding Myths of Israel', p. 388
- ^ Simha Flapan , 1987, ‘The Palestinian Exodus of 1948’, J. Palestine Studies 16 (4), pp.3-26.
- ^ Benny Morris, the Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem and The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
- ^ Interview with Morris in Haaretz, 09/01/2004,[1]
- ^ Shabtai Teveth, 1985, 'Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs. From Peace to War'; David Cesarani, 'Review', The English Historical Review, Vol. 104, 1989, p.268
- ^ Benny Morris, The Birth ... revisited, 2003, p.6.
- ^ Ilan Pappé, 2006, ‘The ethnic cleansing of Palestine’
- ^ Randolph Churchill, Winston S.Churchill, The Six Day War,1967 p.199 citing 'The World at One' BBC radio, July 12,1967
[edit] References
- "Special Report David Ben-Gurion" BBC News.
- "David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973)" Jewish Agency for Israel.
- "The Identity of israel - David Ben-Gurion".
- Biography and quotes of Ben-Gurion PalestineRemembered.com.
[edit] External links
| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by (none) |
Chairman of the Provisional State Council May 14, 1948 - May 17, 1948 |
Succeeded by Chaim Weizmann |
| Preceded by (none) |
Leader of Mapai 1948–1954 |
Succeeded by Moshe Sharett |
| Preceded by Moshe Sharett |
Leader of Mapai 1955–1963 |
Succeeded by Levi Eshkol |
| Preceded by new party |
Leader of Rafi 1965–1968 |
Succeeded by ceased to exist |
| Preceded by new party |
Leader of the National List 1968–1970 |
Succeeded by Yigael Hurvitz |
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| Persondata | |
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| NAME | Ben-Gurion, David |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Grün, David; דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | First Prime Minister of Israel |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 16, 1886 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Płońsk, Poland |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 1, 1973 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Sde Boker |
