David Ben-Gurion

Source

• Born: 16 October 1886
• Birthplace: Plonsk, Poland
• Died: 1 December 1973
• Best Known As: Prime Minister of Israel (1949-53 and 1955-63)

Name at birth: David Grün

One of the most influential leaders of Zionism, David Ben-Gurion declared Israel an independent state in 1948 and served as the first Prime Minister and Defense Minister. Born and raised in Poland, he emigrated to what was then part of Turkish Palestine in 1906 and became active in the Zionist movement, gaining fame for his vision, energy and sharp oratory. During World War I Ben-Gurion lived in the United States, but most of his adult life was spent in Palestine and Israel as a military and political leader. After serving as Israel's first Prime Minister he retired in 1953, but he re-entered politics and served as Prime Minister from 1955 until he voluntarily stepped down in 1963. After his last term as Prime Minister he remained active in Israelis politics until his retirement in 1970.

Other Israeli leaders on Who2 include Golda Meir, Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu.

For more information on David Ben-Gurion, visit Britannica.com.

(b. Plonsk, Poland, 16 Oct. 1886; d. 1 Dec. 1973) Israeli; Prime Minister 1948 – 53, 1955 – 63 David Gruen was active in the socialist Po'ale Zion party before emigrating to Palestine in 1906. He edited the party's organ, Adhuth, taking the surname Ben-Gurion (one of Jerusalem's last defenders against the Romans). He formed the first Jewish trade union in 1915. Expelled from Palestine by the Turks for his pro-Allied activities in 1915, Ben-Gurion co-established the Hehalutz (Pioneer) youth movement and later joined the war on the Allied side.

From 1921 until 1933, Ben-Gurion led Histradut (General Federation of Labour). In 1930 he became leader of Mapai (Workers' Party) and, from 1933, as chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, he worked to build the foundations of a Jewish state. He supported the Peel Commission's proposal of 1937 to partition Palestine to facilitate the creation of this state. Britain's failure to implement the proposal against Arab opposition, and the severe limitations on Jewish immigration and land purchase in Palestine imposed in 1939, led Ben-Gurion to reformulate his policy in the Biltmore Programme of 1942. This demanded removal of restrictions on Jewish immigration, Jewish Agency control of immigration and land settlement, and Palestine becoming "a Jewish Commonwealth". It was imposed in two ways. With US government support, the Jewish Agency flouted immigration limitations and by the terrorist violence of its clandestine military wing, Haganah, supported by the Irgun and LEHY terrorist groups, it made Britain's Palestine Mandate unworkable by 1947. Ben-Gurion supported the UN partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories in that year. When Israel achieved independence in May 1948, around 400,000 Palestinians had become involuntary refugees and approximately 400,000 more fled from the additional territories conquered by Israel in the Arab-Israeli war, 1948 – 9. Ben-Gurion's government introduced an immigration programme that doubled the Jewish population of Israel within three years and, with huge external Jewish financial aid, simultaneously carried out a massive land development programme. His 1948 government also established the new state institutions, including building the Israeli armed forces from Haganah and Irgun, and it originated the Israeli policy of their permanent military superiority to Arab states. In 1956, Ben-Gurion secretly agreed with Britain and France to attack Egypt, with the aim of winning a southern security buffer zone. However, the precipitate withdrawal from Suez of his Anglo-French allies frustrated this ambition. Ben-Gurion quit as premier in 1963 for personal reasons.

The Israeli statesman David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973) served as Israel's first prime minister and minister of defense.

The son of a lawyer, David Gruen was born on October 16, 1886, in Plońsk (Czarist Russia; now Poland). He received a traditional Jewish education, later adding some secular studies in Warsaw. In 1900 he was among the founders of the Zionist youth club Ezra; in 1903 he joined the Zionist socialist movement, Poalei Zion.

Early Political Career

Gruen arrived in Palestine in September 1906. Working as a laborer, he became politically active in the Poalei Zion party and was soon elected chairman. In 1910 he joined the party organ Ha'ahdut, beginning his long writing career. He changed his name at that time to the Hebraic David Ben-Gurion, after a defender of Jerusalem who died in 70 A.D. Zionism and socialism were both seen by the young Ben-Gurion as necessities for the future of the Jewish people. To him Zionism meant the obligation to come to Palestine, settle the land, and use Hebrew as everyday speech.

At the outbreak of World War I, Ben-Gurion was deported, and in 1915 with Yitzhak Ben Zvi (Israel's second president and a lifelong friend) he embarked for the United States. There he married Paula Munweiss, a trainee at the Brooklyn Jewish Nursing School. After the Balfour Declaration (1917) proclaiming the Jewish right to a national homeland in Palestine, Ben-Gurion called for volunteers to liberate Palestine from the Turks. In August 1918 he arrived in Egypt with the Jewish Legion, but the war ended shortly afterward. In 1920 Britain acquired Palestine as a mandate of the League of Nations. The terms of mandate echoed the Balfour Declaration in declaring the area to be a future Jewish national homeland. Progress toward achievement of this goal was slow, however, and the proposed Jewish state was not established until 30 years later.

After the war Ben-Gurion advocated a form of socialism based on the cooperative principle of the new kibbutz movement. During the 1920s and 1930s he emerged as the leader of Labor Zionism. He was among the founders of the important Jewish Federation of Labor (the Histadruth) in 1921 and acted as its secretary general for 14 years. In the early 1930s he became head of the Labor party (Mapai) and a member and later chairman (1935-1948) of the Zionist and Jewish Agency Executives, which was the official representative of the Jewish community. In 1937 Ben-Gurion agreed to the British Royal Commission's proposal to divide Palestine between the Arabs and Jews, since he believed that even a truncated Jewish state would serve the purposes of Zionism. But he was an outspoken opponent of the British White Paper of 1939, limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine and restricting land purchases by Jews.

Israeli Independence

In 1942 Ben-Gurion's Biltmore program, supported by all segments of the Zionist movement, openly declared the Zionist aim as nothing less than the creation of a Jewish state. However, British policy remained unchanged after World War II, despite the catastrophe that had befallen European Jewry in the Holocaust. Ben-Gurion then authorized an armed struggle against the British and adamantly opposed immigration and land-sale restrictions, which threatened to turn Palestine's Jewish community into a permanent minority and made no provision for the great number of displaced Jewish people who wished to immigrate to Palestine.

Ben-Gurion, who throughout the years had made many attempts at Arab-Jewish rapprochement, now set about preparing for armed struggle with the Palestinian Arabs, which he saw as inevitable. In 1947 he was a major spokesman for the Zionist cause before the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, which later that year proposed the partition of Palestine and the formation of a Jewish state. As the British mandate was about to expire, Ben-Gurion proclaimed the restoration of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948. After ending the 2,000-year exile of the Jewish people, he then led them to victory in the war of independence against seven invading armies from the Arab League nations.

Head of State

Serving as prime minister and minister of defense from 1948 to 1963 (except for a brief retirement from 1953 to 1955), Ben-Gurion revealed himself to be not only an astute party leader but also a great statesman. He protected Israel from sudden invasion by establishing a well-equipped and well-trained people's army. He forged the image of Israel as a modern democratic country based on parliamentary rule, a unique sociological and political phenomenon in the Middle East. During his premiership more than a million Jews, from 80 countries and speaking many languages, came to the homeland. The absorption and integration of the immigrants and the Israeli achievements in housing, agricultural settlement, employment, industry, education, health services, and trade, under the Ben-Gurion government, were among the remarkable accomplishments of the 20th century.

Ben-Gurion's premiership was characterized by his fiery oratory. Noted for his integrity and imbued with a messianic vision, Ben-Gurion met every challenge with the inspiration and determination of an Old Testament prophet. He urged the Israelis to study the Bible in order to understand themselves and their homeland. The supremacy of the spirit and the concept of a model state were also ideas on which he often spoke.

Among his significant achievements were negotiation of the reparations agreement with West Germany; establishment of French support prior to the Sinai campaign; consultations with leaders of France, West Germany, and the US (1959-1961) which consolidated Israel's international position and obtained economic assistance; initiation of aid programs to developing African and Asian countries; settlement of the Negev Desert; and resumption of trade at the port of Eilat. In 1956 Ben-Gurion answered Egypt's seizure of the Suez Canal by taking the Sinai Peninsula in a swift thrust almost to the banks of the Suez which inflicted a crushing defeat on the Egyptians. (Israel returned control of the Sinai but occupied it again from 1967-1979).

Resignation and Later Years

His last years as prime minister (1960-1963) were marred by the controversial Lavon affair, which split the Mapai party. Rather than compromise his principles, Ben-Gurion resigned from office. He retired to his desert retreat at Sde Boker and began writing a history of Israel. However, he never abandoned politics and subsequently formed his own Labor party (Rafi), a number of whose members were elected to Parliament. Feeling lonely after the death of his wife and lifelong comrade Paula in 1968, Ben-Gurion was often compared to an old, but still ferocious, lion in a desert retreat. Although he had no formal power, his roar was still loud enough to shake the country. He died in Israel on December 1, 1973. Moshe Dayan, the Israeli defense minister, later wrote of Ben-Gurion: "The man and his leadership were one and inseperable."

Further Reading

Ben-Gurion's Israel: A Personal History (1971) tells the story of his life and of the establishment of Israel. One of the best books on Ben-Gurion is Robert St. John, Ben-Gurion: The Biography of an Extraordinary Man (1959). Other works include David Ben-Gurion, Ben-Gurion Looks Back in Talks with Moshe Pearlman (1965); Maurice Edelman, David! The Story of Ben-Gurion (1964); and Michel Bar-Zohar, The Armed Prophet: A Biography of Ben-Gurion (1966; trans. 1967).

(David Green; 1886-1973) Zionist leader and first prime minister of Israel. Ben-Gurion was born in Plonsk, Poland, and became a Zionist under his father's influence. In 1906 he left for Erets Israel, working as a farm laborer and becoming active in the socialist Po'alei Zion Party, which operated under the banner of Jewish labor, Jewish self-defense, social justice, and the revival of Hebrew culture. Expelled by the Turks at the outset of World War I for his Zionist activity, he spent time in the U.S. and helped form a Jewish battalion, returning to Palestine with the Jewish Legion of the British Army in 1918. In 1920 he was among the founders of the Histadrut labor federation, serving as its secreatary-general from 1921 to 1935. In 1930 he was instrumental in the founding of Mapai, the political party that would dominate Israel's public life until 1977. In 1935 he became chairman of the Jewish Agency, the executive body of the World Zionist Organization, and in effect the dominant figure in the struggle for Jewish statehood, dedicated, as he put it, to the aim of transforming the uprooted, parasitic Jewish masses in the Diaspora into a productive and creative people in an independent state.

During World War II, he continued his political and diplomatic work on behalf of the State-in-the-Making in London, New York, and Washington and vowed to fight the British White Paper restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine "as though there were no war" and to help the British fight the Nazis "as though there were no White Paper." Accepting a territorial compromise in accordance with the UN Partition Plan, he proclaimed the independence of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948, and became the country's first prime minister and minister of defense. He guided the country through its War of Independence and the Sinai Campaign of 1956 as well as the early years of nation building with its mass immigration and accelerated economic growth under the constant threat of Arab attack. He resigned as prime minister in 1963 and retired from public life in 1970.

As a forceful and visionary leader, Ben-Gurion shaped and personified the new state, creating its national institutions (the Israel Defense Forces, the public school and social security systems) and reaching out to the West and the Third World in wide-ranging diplomatic and economic activity. Central to his thinking was the idea of the Jewishness of the State of Israel. From the outset, as much out of conviction as to placate religious leaders, he determined that the Jewish character of the state would be preserved and maintained in public life. This extended to the observance of dietary laws in public institutions (the army, prisons, schools, hospitals, etc.), public observance of the Sabbath and Jewish holidays, and the jurisdiction of rabbinical courts over matters of personal status (marriage and divorce). For Ben-Gurion the Jewish state was the only hope for the realization of the longings of the Jewish people and the fulfillment of its material and spiritual needs. Deeply attached to the Bible, to the Land of Israel, and to the glory of the Jewish past, he saw in the fulfillment of the Zionist dream the only solution to the age-old Jewish problem of homelessness.

A powerful speaker and prolific writer with great organizational skills and tremendous tenacity, he was called by Golda Meir "the greatest Jew of our generation."

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(1886--1973), Zionist leader and first prime minister of Israel. Born in Poland, Ben-Gurion moved to Palestine in 1906. From 1935 to 1948 he served as chairman of the Jewish Agency and Zionist Executive.

As the situation in Europe deteriorated during the late 1930s, Ben-Gurion became increasingly desperate to devise a plan for mass Jewish immigration to Palestine. During the first two years of World War II, Ben-Gurion traveled around the United States, rallying the support of American Jewry for a bold new program called the Biltmore Resolution. This program called for Palestine to be opened up for large-scale immigration after the war and for it to become a Jewish state, under Jewish control. The Zionists would deal with the political side of the Biltmore program, while Jewish organizations throughout the free world would be responsible to fund the project and provide immediate assistance for the Jews of Europe.

Ben-Gurion returned to Palestine in October 1942. By that time, he had confirmed reports of the systematic mass murder of European Jewry. From then on, he worked at organizing the Yishuv'S rescue operations. He encouraged the Jews of Palestine to mobilize for the war effort, and called for the creation of Jewish units in the British army. He did not let the Jewish Agency set up its own wide-reaching rescue committee, preferring that the Yishuv run its own official committee. However, he did allow the Jewish Agency to coordinate political action.

Many historians view Ben-Gurion's actions during the war as rather controversial; they believe that he was dispassionate and did not try hard enough to save European Jews. It seems that Ben-Gurion believed that the Yishuv could not feasibly save many lives, because of the strength of the German war machine and because the Allied powers were not willing to support most rescue plans. Thus, Ben-Gurion decided to turn his attention to smaller, more practical rescue operations that could actually succeed. In fact, he was not apathetic at all to the plight of European Jewry---he was deeply touched by the tragedy, and thus tried to develop policies that would allow for long-term solutions.

1886 - 1973

Labor-Zionist leader and a founder of the Histadrut; Israel's first prime minister and first minister of defense.

David Ben-Gurion was born David Gruen (later changed to David Green) in October 1886 in Plonsk, Poland. He was educated at an Orthodox Hebrew school. In 1903 he helped to organize the Polish branch of the Workers for Zion movement, known as Poʿalei Zion. In 1906 he moved to Palestine, where he worked as a farmer in agricultural settlements and served as a guard against Palestinian attackers. He was an organizer of the Palestine Labor Party and became the editor of its newspaper, Ahdut (Unity), in 1910, which is when he Hebraized his surname to Ben-Gurion.

In 1913 he studied law at the University of Istanbul. When World War I began Ben-Gurion returned to Palestine, but was deported by the Turks in 1915 with his friend Yizhak Ben-Zvi, who later became the president of Israel. Both Ben-Gurion and Ben-Zvi left Palestine and moved to New York City, where Ben-Gurion met and married his wife, Paula.

In the United States Ben-Gurion helped to found the organization ha-Halutz (Young Pioneers) from 1915 - 1916 to support immigration to Palestine. Following the November 1917 British Balfour Declaration, he agreed with Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann that Zionist goals would be best served by supporting the British government. Accordingly, BenGurion enlisted in the British army's Jewish Legion to fight the Ottoman regime. Ben-Gurion enlisted in Canada in 1918, and after training in Nova Scotia, England, and Cairo, he served with General Edmund Henry Allenby in fighting the Turks.

Back in Palestine in 1920, Ben-Gurion helped to create the Histadrut, the national labor federation, and was elected its first secretary-general in 1921. The Histadrut - referred to as a "state within a state," or a "government within a government" - was a major force in economic, social, and labor policy in the Jewish community in Palestine.

Mandatory Palestine

In 1923 the League of Nations mandate for Palestine passed to Great Britain. In 1929 the mandatory government recognized the Jewish Agency as the body representing Jewish interests in Palestine. The following year Ben-Gurion helped to found the Israel workers' party, Mifleget Poʿalei Israel (MAPAI), and became its head.

In 1933 Ben-Gurion became a member of the executive board of the Jewish Agency for Palestine; in 1935 he became chairman of the Zionist executive. Ben-Gurion felt that the 1929 Arab riots against Jewish settlement required that the Jewish Agency push for the classic goals of Zionism: a Jewish majority in Palestine and Jewish self-defense. During this period Ben-Gurion published three books dealing with the labor movement, the Jewish working class, and Zionism. After the creation of the state of Israel, he took the position that real Zionism required migration to Israel. Jewish life outside of Israel, when migration was a possibility, was anathema to Zionism.

In 1936 a royal commission of inquiry - known by the name of its chairman, Lord Peel - arrived in Palestine to investigate Arab-Jewish tensions. BenGurion testified before the Peel Commission. When the commission recommended the partition of Palestine in 1937, Ben-Gurion persuaded the Zionist Congress to accept the principle. In 1939 Britain changed its attitudes toward the Middle East, and adopted a strong pro-Palestinian line. Ben-Gurion called for the Jewish community to resist Britain and advocated "the fighting Zionist." The MacDonald White Paper on Palestine called for severely restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine over the five-year period starting in 1939; all immigration would end in 1944. At the outbreak of World War II, Ben-Gurion argued for Jewish forces to support Britain, despite the 1939 White Papers. He thought that Winston Churchill deserved the support of Zionists and that a solution to Zionist demands would be found at war's end. As late as 1940 he was still urging compromise.

In 1947, at the end of the war, Britain handed jurisdiction for the Palestine problem to the new United Nations. The United Nations formed a Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) and in November 1947 voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, maintaining control of a small area around Jerusalem. Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency executive council began to focus their attention on security for the Jewish population in Palestine against Arab attacks during the transition period and defending the new state of Israel from neighboring nations once independence was declared.

Israeli Statehood

In April 1948 a people's council of thirty-seven members headed by Ben-Gurion was established as an unofficial provisional legislature and government after the departure of the British. On 14 May 1948 Ben-Gurion publicly read the declaration of independence of the state of Israel. The state was attacked by its Arab neighbors in what became known as the War of Independence. One of BenGurion's priorities was access to Jerusalem; ultimately, access was achieved to only the western edge of the city. Another priority, access to the Red Sea, was achieved with conquest of the small city of Elat. An armistice took effect in February 1949; soon thereafter a parliament, the Knesset, and other democratic institutions were formed. Ben-Gurion formed a coalition government that lasted until 1953, and again from 1955 to 1963. He served as both prime minister and minister of defense.

The first Knesset was to draft a new constitution, but decided not to adopt a draft authored by Leo Kohn, legal adviser to the Jewish Agency. BenGurion argued against rushing into any constitution for fear of alienating any sector of Israel's heterogeneous population. Second, he argued that debate over constitutional structures would distract Israel from other issues including resolution of the war, immigration, housing, and finding jobs for new immigrants. Third, the role of religion in the new state needed to be resolved; the extent to which the new constitution would incorporate religious dogma was a contentious one that could not be ignored. (Indeed, many Orthodox Jewish leaders of the day argued that Israel already had a constitution in an assortment of Talmudic documents known to Israel's Jewish population.) Eventually an agreement was reached to respect the religious status quo while a constitution was worked on in piecemeal fashion.

Ben-Gurion had conflicts with his coalition partners over the years, primarily with Orthodox religious parties, the support of which was needed to maintain a majority of seats in the Knesset. His socialist background and secular beliefs often conflicted with the principles espoused by the religious parties, however. Each time his government fell, Ben-Gurion and his cabinet would stay in office as a caretaker government until a new coalition could be assembled. Typically, he would be able to construct a new coalition, usually with the same partners, with a majority in the Knesset.

In 1951 Ben-Gurion had to make a difficult decision concerning war reparations proffered by the West German government. There was an emotional outcry in Israel about whether this was "blood money." Ben-Gurion believed it was aid to help Israel absorb immigrants and survivors of the Nazi regime, not a gesture to allow Germany to forget its war crimes. Demonstrations and acts of violence bordering on civil war, led by opposition leader Menachem Begin, were unable to dissuade Ben-Gurion, and in 1952 an agreement was signed.

In 1953 Ben-Gurion resigned as prime minister for what he cited as health reasons, and Moshe Sharett became prime minister. Ben-Gurion moved to a kibbutz just outside Beersheba, Kibbutz Sde Boker. In 1955 he returned to political life as defense minister under Prime Minister Sharett. Later that year, following new elections, Ben-Gurion resumed the position of prime minister, with Sharett becoming foreign minister. In 1956 Ben-Gurion asked for Sharett's resignation when he felt he could not rely upon Sharett's unquestioning loyalty with regard to cooperation with Britain and France in a possible attack on Egypt. Sharett was replaced by the more supportive Golda Meir as foreign minister.

Ben-Gurion was a supporter of development in the sciences, especially atomic energy. As early as 1956, he decided to proceed vigorously to develop nuclear capability in Israel, primarily as a source of energy. The defense potential of the industry was not lost on him, however.

In 1963 Ben-Gurion again resigned from the government for "personal reasons," and was succeeded by Levi Eshkol. Ben-Gurion's base of power had been eroding for many years as a result of the Lavon Affair - an Israeli spy and sabotage operation in Egypt that had gone awry and embarrassed the Israeli government. Although he was officially out of power, he continued to be regarded as "the Old Man" and was kept informed of government decisions. Even the top-secret decision to launch preemptive strikes against Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq in June of 1967, which led to the Arab - Israeli War of 1967, was shared with Ben-Gurion before the fact; he gave it his blessing. In his later years Ben-Gurion tempered what were often militaristic views of Israel's security needs. Following the 1967 War he was a supporter of negotiating land for peace, arguing that Israel did not need the conquered territories, save those of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

Ben-Gurion retired from the Knesset in 1970 and moved back to his kibbutz. He died on 1 December 1973 in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War.

Bibliography

Bar-Zohar, Michael. Ben-Gurion: A Biography, translated by Peretz Kidron. New York: Delacorte, 1978.

Ben-Gurion, David. Israel: A Personal History. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1971.

Gal, Allon. David Ben-Gurion and the American Alignment for aJewish State. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.

Heller, Joseph. The Birth of Israel, 1945 - 1949: Ben-Gurion andHis Critics. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000.

Sachar, Howard M. A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism toOur Time. New York: Knopf, 1981.

Teveth, Shabtai. Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs: FromPeace to War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Teveth, Shabtai. Ben-Gurion: The Burning Ground, 1886 - 1948. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

Teveth, Shabtai. Ben-Gurion's Spy: The Story of the Political Scandal that Shaped Modern Israel. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

Zweig, Ronald, ed. David Ben-Gurion: Politics and Leadership inIsrael. Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1991.

— GREGORY S. MAHLER

(ben-goor-ee-uhn)

An Israeli political leader of the twentieth century. Active in the movements toward the formation of Israel in the early twentieth century, he was chosen to be the country's first prime minister, and he served until the early 1960s. (See Arab-Israeli conflict.)

Quotes:

"Without moral and intellectual independence, there is no anchor for national independence."

"Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles is not a realist."

"In order to be realist you must believe in miracles."

"Courage is a special kind of knowledge: the knowledge of how to fear what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought no to be feared."

"This life as a simple citizen and laborer has its benefits not only for the person himself but perhaps also for his country. After all, there is room for only one Prime Minister, but for those who make the desert bloom there is room for hundreds, thousands and even millions. And the destiny of the state is in the hands of the many rather than of a single individual. There are times when an individual feels he should do those things which only can and should be done by the many."

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