David Ben Gurion

David Ben-Gurion
David Ben Gurion
Prime Minister of Israel
In office 1948 – 1953 1955 – 1963
Preceded by	None Moshe Sharett
Succeeded by	Moshe Sharett Levi Eshkol
Born	October 16, 1886 Płońsk, Poland
Died	December 1, 1973 Israel
Political party	Mapai

(October 16, 1886 – December 1, 1973; Hebrew: דָּוִד בֶּן גּוּרִיּוֹן) is considered one of the founders of Zionism. He was the first and third Prime Minister of Israel. A tough and uncompromising leader, he was instrumental in the founding of the state of Israel at the expiration of the British Mandate, carrying Israel through the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and leading the country in its first years of existence, not retiring until 1970.

Ben-Gurion was a man with high moral standards. He had the wisdom and flexibility to change his outlook on situations as circumstances changed. He was known to have compassion and respect for the rights of the Arab residents of Israel. Perhaps it could be said that his original perspective that Arabs in Palestine and surrounding areas would benefit from the establishment of a Jewish state was a naive and idealistic perspective [1] None the less, he spent his entire adult life orchestrating the creation and operation of the Jewish homeland of Israel.

Early life

Ben-Gurion was born David Grün in Płońsk, Poland which was then part of the Russian Empire. His father, Avigdor Grün was a lawyer and a leader in the Hovevei Zion organization. His mother, Scheindel died when David was 11 years old.

As a boy, David attended a Hebrew school founded by his father. At age eighteen he became a teacher at the Warsaw Jewish School.

Ben-Gurion was influenced by his father's commitment to Zionism. The pogroms and rampant anti-Semitism that plagued Jewish life in Eastern Europe served to reinforce the views he inherited from his father. He became an ardent Zionist and socialist. In 1906, at age twenty, he moved to Palestine.

He first worked as an agricultural laborer in the orange groves and vineyards. Experience as a farmworked planted the seed for his perspective that the land of Palestine would be conquered through Jewish labor. Later, he became a journalist. It was during this time that he adopted his Hebrew name Ben-Gurion as he was beginning his political career.

Ben-Gurion was expelled from Palestine, then under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, in 1915 due to his political activism. This led to his decision to move to America.

Settling in New York City in 1915, he met the Russian-born Paula Munweis. They were married in 1917, and subsequently had three children. Paula was an integral part of all aspects of his life until her death in 1968.

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.

Zionist leadership

Ben-Gurion was at the political forefront of the Labor Zionist movement during the fifteen years leading to the creation of the State of Israel when Labor Zionism had become the dominant tendency in the World Zionist Organization.

An austere, ascetic idealist, he was driven by a commitment to establishing a Jewish state. It was his belief that the land could and would be conquered by Jewish labor.

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 sex". This showed that Ben-Gurion was not an ethnocentrist but that he had a big mind and heart and an equally big vision for the Jewish homeland.

Ben-Gurion encouraged Jews to join the British military to fight against the Germans during the same time period that he helped orchestrate the illegal immigration of thousands of European Jewish refugees to Palestine. His awareness of the crisis level of suffering of European Jews caused him to make decisions and take actions that he probably otherwise wouldn't have. The British sought to bar new Jewish immigration. Arab residents of Israel were gravely concerned about how the escalation of Jewish immigration would affect them. He persisted in his efforts as the immigrants had no where else to turn and were not safe if they stayed where they were.

He is considered the architect of both the Federation of Jewish Labor, the Histadrut which created a Jewish state within the British state, and the Haganah. Haganah was the paramilitary force of the Labor Zionist movement that facilitated underground immigration, defended kibbutzim and other Jewish settlements against attack and provided the backbone of the future Israeli Defense Forces. Both of these developments put pressure on the British to either grant the Jews a state in Palestine or quit the League of Nations Mandate. They did the latter in 1947 on the heels of a United Nations resolution partitioning the territory between the Jews and Arabs.

During the pre-statehood period in Palestine, Ben-Gurion represented the mainstream Jewish establishment and was known as a moderate. The British frequently partnered with Haganah. Sometimes Haganah was used to arrest more radical groups involved in resistance against the British. Ben-Gurion was strongly opposed to the Revisionist Zionist movement led by Ze'ev Jabotinsky and his successor Menachem Begin.

He was involved in occasional violent resistance during the short period of time his organization cooperated with Menachem Begin's Irgun. However, he refused to be involved in terrorism of any kind, and insisted that violence only be used against military targets. Ben-Gurion initially agreed to Begin's plan to carry out the King David Hotel bombing, with the intent of humiliating (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. He respected the reality at the time that military action had its place but he did not believe in gratuitous taking of life.

He passed the resolution to declare the independence of Israel on May 14, 1948, by vote of 6 to 4, against strong opposition from both sides of the political spectrum of the Jewish community in Palestine, even from within his own party.

During the first weeks of Israel's independence, he passed the decision to disband all resistance groups and replace them with a single formal army, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). To that end, Ben-Gurion gave the order to open fire upon and sink a ship named Altalena, which carried ammunition for the Irgun (also called Etzel) resistance group. That command remains controversial to this day.

Prime Ministership

Ben Gurion led Israel during its War of Independence. He became Prime Minister on February 25, 1949, the day after the first armistice with Egypt was signed to end hostilities. 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, demonstrating innate leadership and strategic planning capability well beyond his level of formal education. 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 returned to office in 1955 assuming the post of Defense Minister and later Prime Minister.

Following his return to government, Ben Gurion collaborated with the British and French to plan the 1956 Sinai War. Israel stormed the Sinai Peninsula in retaliation for raids by Egypt. This gave British and French forces a pretext to intervene in order to secure the Suez Canal after Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser had announced its nationalization. Intervention by the United States and the United Nations forced the British, French and Israelis to back down.

Ben-Gurion was among the founders of Mapai, Israel's labor/socialist party, which governed Israel during the first three decades of its existence. He stepped down as Prime Minister, on personal grounds in 1963 and nominated Levi Eshkol to be his successor.

One 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.

As tensions loomed before the outbreak of the Six-Day War in 1967, Ben-Gurion strongly urged that Israel must have a Great Power on its side. In spite of this, none of the Great Powers came to Israel's aid. In spite of this, both the U.S. and Britain were accused of helping Israel during the Six-Day War. After the war ended with large Israeli territorial gains, Ben-Gurion argued that other than keeping a united Jerusalem, Israel should not occupy more Arab land.

In 1968, when Rafi merged with Mapai to form the Labour Alignment, Ben Gurion refused to reconcile with his old party and formed another new party, The State List, which won four seats in the 1969 election.

Post Polital Life

Ben Gurion retired from politics in 1970 and spent his last years on his kibbutz.

• He was later voted by Time Magazine as one of the top 100 people who shaped the 20th century [2].
• He learned the Spanish language so that he could read Cervantes' novel Don Quixote de la Mancha in its original Spanish language, a book he considered a prerequisite to becoming an effective statesman.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Ben-Gurion Biography and Quotes
• "Special Report David Ben Gurion" BBC News.
• "David Ben Gurion (1886-1973)" Jewish Agency for Israel.
• Biography, David Ben-Gurion

Preceded by: (none)	Leader of the Mapai Party 1948–1954	Succeeded by: Moshe Sharett
Preceded by: (none)	Prime Minister of Israel 1948–1952	Succeeded by: Moshe Sharett
Preceded by: (none)	Defense Minister of Israel 1948–1954	Succeeded by: Pinhas Lavon
Preceded by: Moshe Sharett	Leader of the Mapai Party 1955–1963	Succeeded by: Levi Eshkol
Preceded by: Moshe Sharett	Prime Minister of Israel 1955–1962	Succeeded by: Levi Eshkol
Preceded by: Pinhas Lavon	Defense Minister of Israel 1955–1963	Succeeded by: Levi Eshkol

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